


For We in Our Youth Did These Things

by kevystel



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Anxiety, Borderline Personality Disorder, Character Study, Childhood Friends, Cuddling & Snuggling, Depression, Developing Relationship, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, First Kiss, First Love, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mutual Pining, Non-Linear Narrative, Relationship Study, Unresolved Romantic Tension, makeouts instead of talking about feelings, this entire fic is lorde's melodrama album
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-05-25 22:36:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 29,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14987072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kevystel/pseuds/kevystel
Summary: AU in which Yuuri grew up training under Yakov and with the Russian skaters in St. Petersburg. Chapters in non-chronological order titled after their respective ages. Yuuri and Viktor try to navigate their own messy feelings, rough edges and each other.





	1. Part 1: 20, 21

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cafecliche](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cafecliche/gifts).



> Parts of this AU were previously posted in chapters 29, 32 and 35 [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11264454).
> 
> Title from Sappho 24A as translated by Anne Carson.

Yuuri wins his first gold on a bleak, chilly day in Seoul. The sun’s grey on his face as he leans against the glass window, head lowered, thinking of — only Yuuri knows what he’s thinking about at any given time. Yuuri is twenty, tall and graceful from his recent growth spurt. His previous career has been a long string of failures. They have all been waiting for Yuuri to medal at the Four Continents for years, years: ever since Yuuri joined them in St. Petersburg.

‘Finally,’ says Yakov fiercely, cupping Yuuri’s face in his hands. ‘I knew it! I knew you had it in you! Now you…’ Old man that he is, Yakov chokes on his words for a moment before he speaks again. ‘Now you _shine_ , my boy. This is your time.’

Twenty-one and in love, Viktor taps his foot impatiently while he and Mila and Yurochka glare at the scoreboard from their shared bench. They don’t care about the other competitors who are skating after Yuuri. They know he’s already won. Mila puts her hand on Viktor’s knee to stop his fidgeting. Georgi’s time has come and gone — he’s retired now, teaching ballet in a small children’s school down a corner street which smells perpetually of coffee. Viktor is one of the rising stars in men’s singles. Mila dominates in ladies’ singles, and Yurochka has recently won the junior GPF. They’re young kings and queens, but Yakov should be proudest of Yuuri. They all are.

Yuuri and Viktor haven’t spoken in months. Still, Yuuri is barely out of his skates when he spots Viktor across the crowded lobby and sprints, yes, _sprints_ into Viktor’s arms. Viktor catches him, holds him tightly.

‘Look!’ says Yuuri, bright-eyed and breathless, an unhealthy flush rising high in his cheeks. He holds up the gold medal hanging around his neck so that Viktor can admire it. Viktor’s seen plenty of golds — this one is not special — but he feels the sudden, powerful urge to hold that new-minted gold against Yuuri’s cheek, to cool Yuuri’s skin and his own. ‘I did great, right?’

Viktor nods. He’s still a little taller than Yuuri, so Yuuri can tuck his face into Viktor’s shoulder, burying himself deep in the homely Team Russia jacket. Camera flashes go off around them. Viktor can feel Yuuri trembling slightly against him. They’ve had a long day and Viktor’s ear is well attuned to that familiar, fevered pulse, and he scans the room slowly till he picks out Mila’s face from the other side of the lobby.

‘Okay. Breathe.’ Viktor speaks in an undertone — he doesn’t want to kiss Yuuri in front of the reporters, though he suspects that might do the job more effectively. ‘We’re going to walk across the lobby towards Mila. Yes?’

‘Yes.’ Yuuri inhales, blinking away the noise and all the media attention trained bizarrely on _him_. His eyes go deep and focussed, dark lashes fluttering with tension. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Just ignore any questions they ask you until we get back to the hotel.’

‘Yeah.’ Yuuri laughs then, borderline hysterical, and steels himself by plunging his hands deep into the pockets of his worn-out sweatpants. The gold medal glistens against his chest, hugely mismatched with the rest of his outfit. ‘It’s okay, I’m _fine_ , Vitya,’ he says again (lying), ‘it’s not that much pressure, not like this is an important competition or anything.’

‘Oh, yes. Right.’ Viktor switches tack fluidly; he hardly knows what he’s saying. Yuuri’s hand is clasped in his own, and Yuuri’s fingers grip him like a vice. ‘We’ll be at Worlds together for your first time, yes? I can’t wait for you to join me on the podium!’

Yuuri chokes out, ‘ _Don’t_.’

Viktor blinks, wounded. He was trying to help.

* * *

Much later, Yuuri escapes the gala looking achingly handsome. Yakov made him get a tailored suit, so it actually fits him properly. He slows in his stride as he approaches, slender at his competition weight, pink-cheeked and victorious. A gust of weak, artificial light from the hotel lobby captures Yuuri in its sights just as _he_ sights Viktor, leaning against a pillar in the cool nighttime air.

Viktor doesn’t move. He’s sitting on one of the long benches outside the hotel, and tilting himself ever so slightly sideways so that he can rest his head on the pillar behind him. Yuuri comes over with a quiet catlike tread. Yuuri’s trying to be calm, but Yuuri wears his heart smeared all over him. It’s Yuuri who has taught Viktor how to show emotion.

He sits down on the bench beside Viktor. Yuuri’s growing his hair out: the thick, coarse strands are bound in a small bun, exposing the curve of his neck. He stinks of cheap cologne and his temples are damp with sweat.

‘Sorry for avoiding you for so long,’ Yuuri says at last. He’s looking down at his lap, and he touches the tips of his index fingers together — that time-worn sign that he’s nervous, shy. Viktor knows all of Yuuri’s tells. ‘I was too worked up these last few months.’ He swallows. ‘I didn’t want to spread my anxiety to you.’

‘Wow,’ Viktor says.

‘You think I’m lying?’

‘Yes. You didn’t want me to heighten your anxiety.’ Viktor glances at him sharply and finds that Yuuri’s medal is missing from his chest. Yuuri’s hidden the medal away, probably in his room, at some point between this moment and the last time Viktor saw him. He looks dry-eyed with exhaustion. ‘You’ve been avoiding me for your own sake, not mine.’

‘Sorry. Sorry.’ Yuuri frowns, a small unconscious grimace as he realises this truth (yet doesn’t deny it, even to himself). His intonation sweetens on the second _sorry_ to show Viktor he means it. He looks up at Viktor, trying to explain. ‘You’re just… you’re amazing, and you land your jumps so perfectly that seeing you practise, sometimes, I get anxious —’

‘You only think of yourself. Not other people.’

‘That’s not true! I think about you lots of the time!’ Yuuri wipes his eyes with his sleeve. The fabric’s too rough for him, and the delicate skin around his eyes has turned red when he lowers his arm. ‘I just need to be good enough for you. For you to see me as a competitor! Don’t you understand? I _have to_. Before we can—’

Viktor cuts him off before Yuuri can finish the sentence. Viktor doesn’t want to hear the end of it. _Before we can_ what _?_ Viktor has an uneasy feeling that Yuuri wouldn’t love him no matter how many medals Yuuri managed to win for himself. The medals are irrelevant. Yuuri has just won Four Continents and still thinks he’s vastly inferior to Viktor. That may be true, purely in terms of track record, but they’re _so young_. And Viktor’s tired of waiting for Yuuri to out-skate him, because Yuuri thinks he’ll never be good enough for Viktor, and the longer they wait to be together, the more it seems that Yuuri thinks _Viktor_ isn’t good enough for him.

‘You want to win gold again?’

Yuuri grits his teeth, as he doesn’t like Viktor voicing his ambitions out loud for him. Viktor is too ferocious and Russian to coddle him for long. They’re _all_ ugly and ambitious: that’s why they’re here. If Yuuri can’t face that fact about himself, Viktor is more than happy to face it for him.

‘I guess so.’ Yuuri gives Viktor that quick sidelong, self-effacing smile which never lasts long enough. ‘I’ve got a long way to go before I can catch up with you, right?’

‘I _really_ don’t care whether you win gold or not.’

‘That’s the worst thing you could possibly say to me right now,’ Yuuri says. He slips off the bench and goes inside so that Viktor won’t see him cry.

* * *

Yuuri sleeps uneasily the night of the banquet. He’s half-awake in bed in his hotel room, ten pages deep into a forum discussion about whether Katsuki Yuuri _really_ deserved gold, when Viktor’s knock comes at the door.

‘Come in.’ Yuuri locks his phone and sets it down on the nightstand so Viktor won’t see what he’s been reading.

Viktor, of course, isn’t fooled for a second. ‘It’s three in the morning,’ he says, his voice dark and unimpressed, as he pads into the room with bare feet silent on the carpet. Yuuri doesn’t ask why Viktor is awake too.

‘Otabek-was-robbed,’ Yuuri recites. ‘The-judges-love-Katsuki-and-inflated-his-PCS—’

‘ _Stop that._ ’ Viktor nearly grabs Yuuri’s phone off the nightstand before he remembers to respect Yuuri’s personal belongings. He holds out his hands towards Yuuri, palms up, in an odd placatory-cum-protective gesture. ‘Who is it? Altin? He’s not that good, don’t you worry. I’ll kick him off the podium at Worlds.’

‘Please don’t,’ Yuuri replies mildly. ‘He’s nice.’

‘And you’re wrong. They’re wrong. The judges don’t like you.’ Viktor sets one knee on Yuuri’s bed. His expression is delicate and careful, and he tugs his bottom lip between his teeth. ‘Can I…?’

Chest thick with relief, Yuuri rolls across the bed towards Viktor. ‘Come here, Vitya.’

Viktor wriggles under the covers with a surprising lack of grace, his long hair spreading over the pillows. His breath is hot and sweet as cinnamon, and he fits easily into Yuuri’s arms. Eight years at the rink under Yakov and they don’t know how to speak frankly to themselves, let alone each other. But Yuuri kisses him gently. They communicate through touch, a complicated and earnest language. Yuuri snuggles closer to him, feeling warm and desired. 

Yuuri feels Viktor lift a finger and stroke Yuuri’s hair out of his face. They are so raw and ragged, but they try hard to be tender with one another.

‘Sorry, Yuuri.’

Yuuri wrinkles his nose. ‘Why?’

‘I made you cry. Didn’t I?’

‘Yeah. No, I’m sorry too,’ Yuuri says. Viktor sighs, and he must find some kind of forgiveness on Yuuri’s skin, because he settles himself on the pillow and is calm. ‘Who’d you go home with last night?’

‘No one.’

‘Really?’

‘I left early and went to bed. I wanted to be alone.’

‘You could’ve asked me to walk home with you. I would’ve held you.’

Viktor rests his chin on Yuuri’s shoulder instead of answering. Yuuri shifts his hold on Viktor so that they can cuddle more closely. All the past hours of surreal, panicky interviews have made Yuuri feel sick: he’s convinced now that he’s peaked at twenty, that he’ll never skate clean again and it’s all downhill from here. Viktor’s presence quietens him, unless it’s just before a competition. Then Viktor’s skating fills Yuuri with such mingled love and admiration and fear and resentment that he can’t breathe or hold himself together long enough to compete.

Viktor turns his head so that his lips brush Yuuri’s ear. ‘What are you thinking about?’

‘Georgi said maybe I should see a doctor.’

As dark as the room is, Yuuri can see Viktor’s eyebrows rise in amusement. ‘He said that to me too. Maybe he’s dating a psychiatrist.’

Yuuri smiles against Viktor’s cheek. There’s a pause as they both ponder Georgi’s suggestion. ‘You know, I don’t think I have time for that?’

‘Stupid,’ Viktor mutters.

‘Shhh,’ Yuuri says, fond. ‘You’d have said that too. Too much time on the ice. Not enough time to take care of yourself.’ He nestles into the curve of Viktor’s body under the blankets. ‘Remember when we were younger and you’d crawl into bed with me when you had nightmares?’

‘We’re too old for that now.’

‘Hmm. That’s what Yakov would say.’ The fingers of Yuuri’s right hand are intertwined with Viktor’s, for Viktor’s got his hand trapped between their chests; with his free hand Yuuri strokes the backs of his knuckles against Viktor’s hair. Yuuri is the only person allowed to touch Viktor’s hair without asking first. ‘But I was knocking on Yakov’s door when I had nightmares up till I was _fifteen_ , so that’s Yakov for you.’

‘Why did he stop comforting you after you turned fifteen?’

‘He didn’t stop. _I_ stopped having nightmares.’

Viktor nuzzles his cheek against Yuuri’s hair. Brutal workaholic that he is, Viktor gets very kittenlike when they’re sleepy and alone. ‘You know they weren’t nightmares, right? They were panic attacks in the night.’

‘Yeah, I have them in the daytime now. I’m more considerate that way.’

One of them sighs — Yuuri’s too close to sleep to figure out who it is. He has to say something while he’s got the chance, but he doesn’t know how to tell Viktor what he’s feeling without making it sound like a rejection. Yuuri really, really doesn’t know what he’s doing.

He breathes in deeply and then opens his mouth before he’s ready to speak, so that he can’t be a coward about this. ‘Vitya, I can’t skate against you at Worlds. I want to, but I can’t. I might have a massive breakdown on the ice.’

Viktor’s voice is very quiet. ‘Okay.’


	2. Part 1: 11, 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New and untested, Yuuri has to prove himself. TW: this chapter deals with food/body image issues and anxiety.

‘Wow,’ Viktor says.

Yuuri doesn’t see why Viktor should have reacted that way — Yuuri flubs his jumps all the time — but he supposes any level of mediocrity is surprising to Viktor. Yuuri skates over to the barrier and grabs his water bottle, his cheeks burning. His blood pounds terribly in his ears; his ears are ringing more often than not, even when he’s cooled down, even when he’s sitting still. Yuuri’s head is very noisy all the time these days.

Having come in just in time to catch the end of Yuuri’s run-through, Viktor stands near the entrance to the rink, already deep in conversation with Yakov, his long hair hanging in a fishtail braid down his back. This isn’t how Yuuri envisioned meeting Viktor Nikiforov for the first time. He sinks down to the ice beside the barrier and rests his head on his knees, and Yakov dismisses Yuuri for five minutes’ break with a curt nod.

Yuuri can sense Viktor’s cool gaze burning into his back as he walks away. Nausea pools somewhere shallow near his ribs. Yuuri flees to the bathroom.

He doesn’t cry. He puts the lid down and sits on the toilet seat, pulling his knees up to his chest so that he can prop his heels on the very edge of the seat. The nausea has passed, but his pulse is still hammering too loudly for the rest of the world to be audible. Yuuri doesn’t understand what’s happening inside of him. The bathroom is narrow, quiet, empty, and Yuuri watches the discoloured cubicle door in front of him and waits for himself to be calm.

Yakov gave him five minutes to rest. For the first time in the few months since he moved to Russia, Yuuri does not listen to Yakov.

Some time later, a pair of neatly laced sneakers walks across the tiled floor and pauses in front of Yuuri’s cubicle. Yuuri can see them clearly in the gap underneath the door. He hates that he recognises the pastel tops of those sneakers, and he hates that he’s got the mental energy to think about hating that.

There’s a knock. Hesitant at first, polite, then quicker and impatient. Viktor isn’t known for his attention span. Yuuri sucks in his breath as quietly as he can. He fights the urge to tell Viktor to go away, mostly because he doesn’t know Viktor, but also because he thinks Viktor _would_ go away, and then — and then Yuuri doesn’t know how he’d feel about that.

Viktor knocks again, three times.

‘Yeah,’ Yuuri says. He clears his throat. ‘I’m in here.’

‘Are you crying?’ Viktor sounds curious.

Yuuri’s answer comes out before he has time to stop and think about it. ‘No.’

‘Do you want to come out?’

‘No.’

Viktor doesn’t respond, and Yuuri thinks that’s the end of their first meeting. Then the sneakers disappear and Viktor’s footsteps cross the bathroom rapidly, away from Yuuri. Yuuri hears what sounds like a chair being dragged across the floor, scraping the tiles. The chair arrives in front of Yuuri’s cubicle and is wedged firmly into place. A moment later, the top half of Viktor’s face appears above the door.

They stare at each other.

Viktor’s fine hair is dishevelled. He’s got all ten of his fingers curled over the top of the door, presumably to steady himself. He must be standing on tiptoe. His nail polish has chipped off at the edges, badly.

‘Hi,’ he says. ‘I’m Viktor Nikiforov.’

Yuuri squints at him. ‘I know.’

* * *

Viktor works harder than anybody Yuuri’s ever seen, and Yuuri is used to being the hardest-working one at his home rink. He gets used to finding Viktor already at the rink when he slips in at the night’s quietest hours to skate figures with his earbuds in. It’s disorienting at first, not being alone — but Viktor leaves Yuuri plenty of space. Yuuri soon learns to forget that Viktor’s even there. Viktor keeps to himself, seemingly lost in thought as he sketches out some new routine at the other end of the rink, his eyes downcast like those of a stained-glass child saint.

One night, Viktor finds him sitting crosslegged on one of the benches outside the rink, jacket zipped all the way up to his chin for warmth. Yuuri’s ripping open the bag of chips he brought with him, and he almost doesn’t notice Viktor approaching. Viktor broke off abruptly in the middle of whatever he was skating and went into the locker room; he was gone a long while. What Viktor does in his own time is a mystery to anyone who knows him.

Viktor is carrying two bottles of mineral water, and he hands one off to Yuuri, then immediately opens the bottle he’s kept back for himself. Yuuri takes the proffered water bottle without looking up and sets it on the bench beside him. Standing in front of the bench, Viktor takes a draught from his own bottle, his wristbones glinting fine and fragile in the St. Petersburg street lights. 

‘You have good spins,’ says Viktor.

Yuuri knows this — logically he knows it, he’s not here with Yakov for nothing — but hearing it from Viktor means something else. His chest clenches tight; then the oily weight in his stomach lifts a little, and right here, right now, before he’s won his first big competition, Yuuri reaps his first reward.

He isn’t hungry. He’s just eating chips at two in the morning, that’s all. He needs to stuff himself with food until he doesn’t need anything anymore. That’s all.

Yuuri blows out a long exhale. He realises he’s supposed to respond when he notices Viktor still standing there, looking at him. 

‘Thanks.’

Viktor doesn’t seem to mind the one-word response, shrugging it off with a little motion of his head that’s half acknowledgement and half disinterest. He watches Yuuri for a few more seconds, that calm blue gaze lingering on Yuuri’s eyelids, the sweaty hair stuck to Yuuri’s forehead.

Then Viktor notices the bag of chips Yuuri’s steadily working through and a small frown appears on his face.

‘You shouldn’t eat that. It’s bad for you.’

Yuuri grits his teeth. ‘Okay, Viktor.’

* * *

Viktor looks like a painted icon. Delicate, fey, taller than Yuuri by half a head, he looks stylised — he looks as though the painter gave up on realism and worked him as exquisitely as possible in silver leaf. Brushstrokes as fine as camel hair. Faded jeans leaking over the tops of those pastel sneakers, hair ties perpetually sliding down his wrists, light grey sweaters he almost drowns in. Yuuri is fat and un-pretty. Viktor calls him a little piggy once. Viktor means it in jest, probably forgets the whole incident as soon as he’s said the words, but Yuuri’ll never forget.

‘Can you braid my hair?’ asks Viktor, twisting up a section of his hair beside his head as he turns to look at Yuuri. He’s got a hairpin sticking out of one side of his mouth, and his cheek is stamped with the red imprint of Yuuri’s shoulder. His voice is light and neutral, as though the thought’s only just occurred to him.

Yuuri isn’t sure how to feel about Viktor regularly napping with his head on Yuuri’s shoulder or in Yuuri’s lap, about Viktor sliding into the seat beside Yuuri on the Russian team’s chartered bus to the airport, his eyes bright with the simple assurance of someone who’s never been denied anything in his life. They hardly know each other. How can _Yuuri_ say no to Viktor?

Behind them, Yurochka shifts restlessly in his own seat, cheek pillowed on a pile of jackets in Mila’s lap. Yuuri takes the drinking straw out of his mouth long enough to say: ‘You can braid it yourself. You’re better at it.’

‘Oh.’ Viktor looks down; the expression on his face is unreadable. He removes the hairpin from his own mouth and examines it. ‘That’s true.’

* * *

Yuuri has his first real anxiety attack in front of everybody just before New Year’s. His head’s between his knees — somehow, he doesn’t know how it got there — and he’s curled up on the floor of Lilia’s ballet studio, shaking, his heart shuddering at the very top of his chest as Lilia claps her hands and orders, ‘All of you, out! Everybody out!’

Her voice is sharp, precise; he flinches.

For an instant, nobody moves. Yuuri raises his head (thinking _please no not them I don’t want them to see_ ) just in time to meet Mila’s worried gaze. Then Yuuri thinks he might throw up, and he lurches sideways, towards the dustbin somebody — Georgi? — shoves in front of him. Yuuri dry-heaves into the bin for several seconds while nothing comes up ( _fat_ fat _he’s so fat_ ) and the bin’s liner bag, stuffed with empty mineral water bottles, glitters under his feverish eyes. The noise around him is too loud. Why won’t they stop, why won’t they stop _talking_? He jerks up and turns to face the others’ inevitable jeers — only to find that they’re looking back at him or at the floor near their feet, uncomfortably silent. The only noise he’s been hearing is that of his own head.

Viktor is the first to go. He turns on his heel, bare feet quick and stealthy on the naked studio floor, and Yurochka follows. Lilia lowers herself into a crouch beside Yuuri, leaving just enough distance between them for Yuuri to feel safe. Safer. She lifts her head and sends the others another fiercewarning glance as they trail out of the studio in silence.

Mila, Tatiana, Yurochka, they all traipse out like obedient ducklings. Only Viktor — first to go, last to leave — lingers on the threshold and gazes back at Yuuri until Georgi snaps his fingers to get him moving.

Yuuri wants to put his head in his hands, to cover his eyes, his ears; but he doesn’t dare move while Lilia is watching him. She speaks to him now, her voice surprisingly low. He expected shouting. It takes a few minutes before Yuuri understands the words her lips are forming.

‘Come now, you must be truthful with me.’ Lilia tends to talk to Yuuri rather slowly, far slower than she talks to the Russians. Her accent drags the syllables down. ‘Have I been too harsh?’

Yuuri shakes his head. He won’t lie to her.

‘We are harsh with you because you have talent. You understand?’

He’s sick, Yuuri thinks. What does it matter whether he’s talented or hopeless? There’s something wrong with Yuuri. There’s something wrong inside him and he can’t fix it.

‘If I praised you only, it would mean I did not think you have potential to grow.’

He can’t fix himself. He doesn’t know how. He doesn’t know what’s happening to him. He has to try, he _has to_ ; he has to try to be well. Pretend to be well, at least. If Yakov realises there’s something wrong with Yuuri, he’ll send him back to Hasetsu in disgrace.

‘Do you think you have potential, Yuuri?’

Yuuri says nothing. He can’t speak. But he nods. He needs to maintain the façade.

‘You need to say it.’

Once Viktor sees how much is wrong with Yuuri, he’ll never respect Yuuri as a skater. Yuuri closes his eyes, opens them again, thinks: _I am well. I’m okay. I am Japan’s hope._

If he thinks it hard enough, he’ll make it true.

‘Yes.’

Lilia’s pale eyes flicker. ‘Yes what?’

‘Yes, I have potential.’

Lilia smiles: her smile is a brief flash of light, subdued and precious. The Russian skaters scramble over themselves trying to win that smile. ‘Good.’


	3. Part 1: 16, 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rihanna_loveonthebrain.mp3
> 
> CW again for eating issues and dealing with BPD triggers

Yuuri finds Viktor at last in a corner of the airport’s duty-free store, snuggling a plump teddy bear beneath his chin in front of the children’s toy shelves. Yuuri’s lips quirk up in amusement: he’s got the loveliest fleeting smile, playing around the crinkles of his eyes before it disappears into his usual shyness. Hands curled in the pockets of his threadbare hoodie, he comes up to Viktor, eternally sure of his welcome. Yuuri’s presence makes Viktor feel calm.

‘Do you want that teddy bear?’

Viktor shakes his head. He sets the bear back down on the shelf and takes Yuuri’s hand in its place. Yuuri’s fingers are warm and dry and Viktor can smell the laundry soap on his clothing. ‘Do the perfume counters give out free samples? I want to walk up to our economy-class seats wearing Chanel No. 5.’

Yuuri’s eyebrows flick upwards, although in curiosity rather than judgement. He squeezes Viktor’s hand absent-mindedly. ‘Let’s go and look.’

* * *

Yuuri devours the single, sweating in-flight meal provided on the plane. Viktor doesn’t. The unwashed scent of aluminium foil turns his stomach. Yurochka dozes in his window seat, crowded up against Yuuri’s arm; Yuuri watches Russian movies over Viktor’s shoulder, squinting at the subtitles. His glasses are badly smudged by the time they land in Turin. Viktor’s shoes join Yurochka’s on the floor beneath their seats, carelessly kicked off and mingling with the debris.

Yakov permits them one single-scoop ice cream cone each. Arms linked, Mila and Viktor wander through the tourist-packed streets outside their hotel, drinking in the sweet breezes of spring. Mila gets herself new sunglasses. Viktor, who lives in deep admiration of Mila’s fashion sense, purchases a similar pair.

‘Where’s Yuuri?’

‘He has a friend here,’ Viktor explains. ‘From Thailand.’

‘Good, good,’ she replies, ‘it’s good for him to have other friends.’ _Friends who aren’t us_ , she means; _friends who don’t stress him out just as much as they love him and he loves them. We can’t help being top figure skaters. Neither can he help being incurably anxious at his worst times, precisely because we’re top figure skaters and he’s not._

Viktor and Mila can read each other’s minds. This is why he treasures her.

‘I love this place!’ Mila exclaims when they meet a small family of ducks in the sun-soaked garden. Tossing back her head, she tucks her sunglasses into the pocket of her jeans and whips out her phone. Viktor cranes his neck to get a look at Mila’s phone as she snaps pictures of the ducklings.

‘They are so small and helpless.’ Here in Italy, they murmur to each other in Russian. Viktor crosses his arms over his chest, peering at the mother duck as she leads her babies over the grass towards a nearby pond. ‘Will they die?’

‘I don’t know, Vityusha. I hope not.’

‘Speaking of ducklings,’ he adds, ‘I’m in the mood to eat roast duck tonight.’

Mila laughs and smacks his arm. Viktor ducks away, avoiding her playful slaps. ‘You’re _awful_. Don’t you have any empathy?’

‘I think I’ve used it all up,’ he tells her truthfully.

Mila doesn’t argue with that. She puts her hand on his shoulder instead, guiding them both towards the gates. ‘Anyway, I can’t join you guys for dinner tonight. I’m meeting Sara while Yuuri and Seung-gil distract her brother.’

‘Nice teamwork there.’

‘What can I say? We’re a team.’ Mila glances at Viktor now, her gaze swift and penetrating. Like all the Russian team, she is a force unstoppable. There’s no use challenging her, or trying to avoid her sharp observations; you simply have to brace yourself and try to withstand the hurricane. And, more than anything, Viktor respects Mila’s tact. There are a lot of things she could say to him. She knows Viktor doesn’t have any friends besides her and Yuuri, and maybe Yurochka if they’re being generous. But Mila only asks: ‘You’ll be okay?’

Viktor smiles. His smile is practised. Glancing over her shoulder at the flocks of happy, pastel-coloured tourists and locals and the vendors handing out plastic cups, Viktor says, ‘Do you ever just see a boy and remember all of a sudden that you’re gay?’

‘ _Yes_ ,’ Mila snorts. ‘Yes, Vityusha, I definitely do.’

* * *

Viktor skates well, talks to no one, and waves cheerily at fans who’ve come to watch the public practice. In the evening, he goes out again (this time with Yurochka) in search of _granita_. Although Viktor isn’t big on sweet shaved-ice treats, Yurochka is, and they all indulge Yurochka whenever he lets them.

‘Cute dog,’ says Yurochka as they pass a pet shop — he says this grudgingly, almost contemptuously, but says it all the same. He tugs at Viktor’s jacket. ‘Come here, asshole. Look.’

‘At what? Dogs?’ Viktor bends down to examine the puppies, drowsy and well-fed in theirseparate enclosures, sweet as strawberry jam through the pet shop’s windows. They are pretty creatures: even Viktor can understand that. He doesn’t have much of a heart for animals. He doesn’t have much of a heart for anything outside skating. ‘Aren’t you a cat person?’

‘Yeah, I am. Not relevant.’ Yurochka slaps Viktor’s belly through his jacket, one arm flung out without looking to catch any part of Viktor that’s within reach. Viktor grabs Yurochka’s hand and holds it still. ‘You should get a dog.’

Viktor stares at him. ‘Why?’

‘Why not?’ Yurochka squats down and glowers at the puppies as though they’ve personally offended him. Viktor thinks he’s being a little harsh. The dogs haven’t done anything special either way. ‘I think you need a dog, Vitya.’

‘I don’t need a dog. I have Yuuri.’

Yurochka stares at Viktor open-mouthed for a good five seconds before he spins around and stomps away from Viktor, dramatic child that he is, ignoring Viktor’s calls for him to wait. Bright-winged tourists flutter out of his path in alarm. ‘I hate you! I hate all of you!’ He only pauses in his stride after Viktor catches up to him. ‘You’re all so… so… why are you like this?’

Viktor trails after Yurochka, dimly aware that he’s said something wrong, though still not understanding _why_. He doesn’t need extra companionship; he doesn’t deserve having more than one creature to really care about. ‘Like what, Yurochka?’

‘ _Don’t call me Yurochka_ ,’ Yurochka snarls, and that’s the end of the conversation.

* * *

Viktor isn’t missing Yuuri while Yuuri’s off exploring the wildest and best streets with his friend Phichit. Viktor has ugly jealousies, a temper he hates to let anybody see, but he tamps down the resentment and makes himself _nice_. Viktor doesn’t and will never have the right to monopolise Yuuri’s time. Yuuri is loved by many, which is just the way things should be. It’s not Yuuri’s fault at all that Viktor is so lonely, ragged, unlovable.

He spends some hours skating figures in Yuuri’s style before remembering that what calms Yuuri doesn’t help to calm Viktor.

So Viktor wanders back into the hotel. His heart leaps despite himself when he sees Yuuri slouched against the pillar in the lobby, the strings of that old blue-grey hoodie curled snugly around Yuuri’s neck. Viktor winds his way over to Yuuri. He knows he’s lonely, more than a little desperate, but something’s not quite right inside his head these days and he feels like someone starving. He feels drunk on the sweet way that Yuuri says: ‘Vitya?’

‘Yeah. I’m here,’ says Viktor nonsensically, still stuck on the adorable curl of Yuuri’s tongue shaping the syllables. He fights the ache to take Yuuri’s hand, to nestle into the soft unwashed bulk of Yuuri. ‘Are you…’ Viktor bites his lip, struggling to find the right phrasing. He’s barely spoken to anybody all day. ‘Did you have a good time with Phichit?’

Yuuri brightens and Viktor tells himself firmly: _stop. Stop wondering whether he lights up this way whenever people mention your name._ There’s something not right with Viktor if he keeps getting like this even when he tries to be nice, even when he tries _so hard_ , he can’t stop himself — he remembers Yurochka’s exasperated voice demanding, ‘Why are you like this?’

‘Yeah, I did.’ Yuuri reaches out and takes Viktor’s hand of his own accord. They slide away across the lobby towards the lifts, and Viktor’s heart is pounding. Then Yuuri apparently recalls something and he turns to Viktor with that beloved sparkle in his dark eyes. ‘He wants to meet you!’

‘Who?’

‘Phichit.’

Yuuri presses the lift button. He smiles at Viktor, reading something in Viktor’s expression that Viktor doesn’t know is there. Viktor tries very hard to handle him carefully, knowing how Yuuri’s head torments him with noise even on his best days — Viktor tries, really tries, even when he feels wrong and jagged on the inside and everything from his throat to his ribs is screaming at him to catch Yuuri and keep him close. To warn Yuuri, _you are mine_. He has to stop. It isn’t right. He wants to kiss Yuuri and know that he, too, is wanted.

‘You’ll like Phichit. I mean, I think you will.’ Yuuri pauses, always cautious and gentle as he thinks over what to say. Yuuri thinks slowly, but with care: it’s one of the gorgeous things about him. ‘I hope you like each other.’

Viktor stops himself before throwing out the awful demand: _am_ I _not likable? Am I not enough for you, for Phichit Chulanont?_ Fortunately they’re distracted by the sight of a stray reporter heading towards them just as the lift’s soft _ding_ announces its arrival.

Yuuri squints across the lobby. ‘Is that…?’

‘Run.’

‘Nowhere to run, Vitya,’ Yuuri whispers, voice high in a half-giggle. Viktor squeezes Yuuri’s hand. He knows how anxious Yuuri gets when they have to deal with any kind of media attention. Viktor looks around the lobby, nods at Yuuri to signal that they’re going to escape into the lift. If Viktor wins gold at this competition maybe he’ll be more… more collected, more coherent. He knows he has to break a lot of records before he’ll feel whole.

‘Just a minute!’ the reporter shouts. ‘Yuuri Katsuki…?’

‘He does not know English,’ replies Viktor in his heaviest Russian accent, shooing Yuuri into the lift. ‘Excuse me, we are late for party.’

Yuuri shakes with laughter as the lift’s doors slide shut.

‘Excuse me, we are late for party?’ he mimics, his hand still safe in Viktor’s. Years and years with Yakov have made Yuuri a little wry, a little more willing to be sarcastic in the open. Viktor loves this about him — these unexpected bursts of sharpness amid his usual soft speech. ‘You never fail to surprise me, Vitya.’

Mila calls Viktor Vityusha. Yakov and Lilia call him Vitya. Yurochka uses Vitka, sometimes, when he feels like being a brat. Yuuri doesn’t need any special diminutives for Viktor. _Vitya_ already sounds like a love name in Yuuri’s mouth.

The floor buttons light up one by one. Yuuri’s thumb strokes the inside of Viktor’s wrist in thanks. Viktor rescues Yuuri from pushy reporters, even from nice reporters (biting back his own disapproval at Yuuri’s outward coldness), because he knows how Yuuri trembles. He wonders whether Phichit does the same. 

Viktor wishes he knew how to be nice. He’s sure Phichit does. Phichit has a sunny face and doesn’t look as though he’s ever been cruel in his life. Is everybody normal except Viktor?

Yuuri leans against him sleepily, nestling into Viktor’s shoulder. Viktor tugs his hand from Yuuri’s so that he can brush Yuuri’s hair out of his eyes. Yuuri gives him a small smile, rich and drowsy and trusting. 

The floors keep going up, and up and up: they don’t have enough time in private, Viktor thinks, never enough. He feels like a child coaxing some skittish wild animal into his hands. Yuuri’s dark, liquid eyes rest on Viktor intently.

Viktor leans in slowly. They’re currently the same height, although Viktor’s in the middle of a growth spurt and will soon outstrip Yuuri. He moves with care, not wanting to seem as aggressive as he feels. He presses his mouth to Yuuri’s mouth — brief, tender. It could pass as platonic affection. (They both know that isn’t true.)

Then it’s over. Viktor pulls away. His stomach feels empty. He wants more, he _always_ wants more, he wants to know that this won’t be their first and last and only kiss, but he has to be calm and controlled. He never ever wants to force anything on Yuuri.

Yuuri sighs. Viktor can’t look at him. But then — then Yuuri tips his chin up, and their lips meet a second time. Viktor gasps, he can’t breathe; Yuuri’s mouth is soft and tastes too strongly of butter and something fried. Yakov’ll kill him for not eating right. Viktor loves him, _loves him_ — the second kiss lasts only a moment or two, chaste and sweet. Yuuri tilts his head to one side as he draws away, fawnlike, and then he leans forward abruptly and hugs Viktor.

‘What’ve you been eating?’ Viktor asks blindly as his arms go around Yuuri’s belly.

He knows he shouldn’t ask. He knows Yuuri’s already self-conscious about his own diet, his weight, especially around Viktor and Yurochka with their naturally fast metabolisms. But Viktor is a cruel person.

Yuuri mumbles, ‘Katsudon.’

‘Mmm.’ The lift _dings_ again, and the doors open. They’ve reached Yuuri’s floor. Viktor finds it unbearable that he and Yuuri are staying on separate floors. Then again, Viktor’s seventeen years old and finds a lot of things unbearable.

Yuuri steps away from Viktor gently but inexorably, fingers trailing out of Viktor’s. He can’t be leaving so soon. The lift’s about to slam its doors shut and carry Viktor up to his own floor. Yuuri has to kiss Viktor again. He has to.

Viktor tamps down all of these ugly thoughts and strives to be nice.

‘Vitya,’ Yuuri murmurs, sounding low and curious, ‘let’s eat katsudon together sometime.’

Is that a rejection? Is that an invitation? Viktor sucks in a shuddering breath. He answers, hardly aware of what he’s saying: ‘I love katsudon.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok i've just sat down to plan out this fic and it has a plot, i swear! next chapter will be the last bit of part 1


	4. Part 1: 16, 17 (continued)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Viktor gets the sloppy teenage romance he always dreamed of having.

Phichit Chulanont talks ten miles a minute. Viktor, whose brain alternates between feeling like a machine left ticking over in an empty shop and retreating from all the excessive stimulation around him, finds himself nodding along with his arms crossed over his chest. He ends up just pretending to follow what Phichit is saying, which is… which is, well, what Viktor does with a lot of people these days.

‘— and Leo said — you know Leo, right? Guang Hong’s best friend! He idolises you — I mean,come on, they all do—’

Who’s _they_?

‘— plus we’re having a movie night the day after tomorrow, my room, come and join us! You’d be super welcome—’

_Smile and nod_ , Viktor thinks, _smile and nod_.

‘I’ve invited Yuuri, of course, and Sara _might_ be coming, which means Mila _might_ be there, and you know what those two are like around each other! Please come and give me moral support so I can deal with their PDA!’ Phichit pauses for breath. His hands flutter as he lands on some pier of the conversation Viktor doesn’t even know how to identify. Viktor is lost in the sea of this talk of friends and people and socialising. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I love those two and I support them and their love for each other, but do they ever have a _knack_ for making you feel like the third wheel!’

Viktor is very tired, and he is also tired of speaking English. He wants to sink back into Russian. He can only think in Russian, at any rate.

‘Anyway, bring whoever you want, everyone’s welcome! Although I don’t know who your friends are…’

Viktor keeps his smile precise. His head hurts.

Phichit seems to shake off this observation. He apparently doesn’t respect Viktor any less for always being alone — does that say something about Phichit? ‘Yeah, so see you there, Viktor! It was nice chatting with you. I really hope you’ll come!’

Viktor has no words to put to the feeling that settles on him all too often nowadays, the cloud of mute unhappiness without a name. He’s tired. That’s all. He already knows he’s not going to show up for Phichit’s movie night.

After Phichit leaves him, Viktor wanders back to the rink and sits in the locker room for several minutes. He plaits his hair five different ways before giving up on that as a method of calming down, so he sighs and gets out his skates. 

Viktor falls three times in a row, scrapes his hands bloody, and feels a little bit better afterwards.

* * *

Mila actually shrieks and leaps up in her seat when Sara appears on the ice. ‘Sara! Sara!’ She’s clapping her hands, blithely ignoring Lilia’s look of mild perplexity from the seat beside her. ‘Go Sara! You can do it!’

Yurochka has his head in his hands. ‘The competition hasn’t even started yet.’

‘Oh, to be young again,’ says Lilia.

Yurochka leans around Lilia to glower at Viktor. ‘Where’s Yuuri gone off to?’

Viktor doesn’t even bother to shrug. He’s not Yuuri’s keeper.

When Viktor doesn’t respond, Yurochka flicks a shredded-up napkin at him. ‘Hey! Don’t ignore me, asshole.’

‘I wasn’t ignoring you,’ Viktor sighs. Around Yurochka, sometimes he feels very old, sometimes intolerably young. ‘He might be with Phichit. I don’t know.’

‘Who’s Phichit?’ Yurochka snorts. He has Viktor’s anger without Viktor’s self-restraint, which makes the two of them a very dangerous combination. Viktor chooses to believe that this is why they don’t spend much time together. ‘Has he won anything? Thought not.’

‘Yurochka, you are a sportsman!’ Lilia snaps, and Yurochka deflates in his seat, his contempt disappearing.

‘Sorry, Lilia.’

A second later Mila gasps and whacks Viktor’s arm. Since Viktor only tolerates Mila’s casual roughhousing when he’s in a good mood, he reflexively hits her back. But then he sees what she’s pointing at.

‘Yuuri! It’s Yuuri!’ Mila bounces back down into her seat so she can keep hold of Viktor’s attention. ‘Vityusha, look, Yuuri’s here!’

‘Ah,’ says Viktor. His heart soars into his mouth. ‘Yuuri—’

‘Pull yourself together!’ Yakov hisses from the row behind them. ‘I cannot believe I have to deal with this from both you _and_ Mila! You two!’

* * *

Yuuri waits until they’re alone in the locker room before he says: ‘Vitya.’ He has to repeat himself twice before Viktor finally looks at him. ‘Why are you upset?’

Viktor’s eyes widen for an instant before he turns the expression into a simple lift of his eyebrows, innocently surprised. He glances down, and then he’s looking at Yuuri through the veil of his pale eyelashes. ‘I’m not.’

‘Yes, you are.’

Viktor raises his head fully then, meeting Yuuri’s gaze head-on. Yuuri can see the unkind retort sitting on Viktor’s tongue — _why don’t you go back to trying to land that quad sal, Yuuri?_ — but Viktor bites it down. The set of his mouth changes. His eyes change. He blinks, and when his lips stretch into a smile for Yuuri, it’s still nauseatingly false but there isn’t a mean edge to it.

‘Mmm,’ says Viktor. ‘Yuuri, I’m going to go for a walk.’

* * *

When Yuuri and Mila are absent from dinner, and Yurochka has shunned everyone else to run off to the lobby and scroll through his phone, Viktor relaxes a great deal. Alone with Yakov, the dullness in Viktor’s chest settles into something plump and at ease as he and Yakov are free to indulge in their favourite pastime, which is shouting at each other in city-slicker-accented Russian.

‘You just called yourself a living legend in front of a crowd of reporters! You are seventeen years old, Vitya, and you have the gall—’

‘I was quoting a Britney Spears song,’ says Viktor, wounded. ‘I’m upset, _upset_ , Yakov, that nobody understood the reference except Christophe Giacometti!’

‘I don’t care if you’re upset!’ Yakov stomps alongside him companionably as they make their way through the hotel corridor. ’The RSF is upset with you now! I have been defending you on the phone with them all day!’

‘They’ll get over it,’ Viktor replies unrepentantly. ‘Anyway, I have to go admire Yuuri while he plays games on his laptop. See you later, Yakov!’

‘You two need to get yourselves _under control_ ,’ Yakov scolds. ‘I am raising the future of figure skating here, not a pair of star-crossed lovers from some Western romance!’’

‘So which one of us is Romeo?’

‘I am impressed that you’ve ever read Shakespeare,’ Yakov bawls after him as Viktor walks away.

‘I haven’t!’ Viktor yells back. ‘I meant the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio!’

* * *

‘Do you want a flower crown?’ is the first thing Yuuri asks when he finds Viktor in the garden parks where Viktor and Mila spotted the duck family.

Viktor blinks up at Yuuri. He reaches into the paper bag of bread crusts he brought to the parks with him, and scatters another handful of crumbs for the pigeons surrounding his bench. ‘Are you offering?’

Yuuri smiles. He has dimples; it’s honestly unfair. ‘Yeah.’

They lie on the grass with sunlight pooling in the small of Yuuri’s back. Viktor has one arm outstretched, periodically tossing crumbs to the pigeons who still hop towards them hopefully. Yuuri gives the pigeons a critical glance as he plaits some long-stemmed flowers together.

‘Those are the fattest birds I’ve ever seen.’

‘They’re allowed to be fat, Yuuri,’ Viktor says mildly. ‘They’re not figure skaters.’

Yuuri laughs. ‘I didn’t say it was a bad thing.’ He leans over to measure Viktor’s head with his palms, his fingertips trailing along Viktor’s jaw. He tugs the plush of his bottom lip between his teeth in concentration. ‘I was thinking you could wear it when you skate.’

‘What, the flower crown?’

‘Mm-hmm.’ Yuuri points to Viktor’s bag of crusts with a questioning look, then slips his hand into the bag when Viktor nods. With a generous sweep of his arm, he flings crumbs at the assembled pigeons. ‘What do you think?’

Viktor considers this. ‘It’ll fall off when I jump.’

‘Oh, that’s true.’ Yuuri’s brow furrows. ‘Maybe when you’re on the podium?’ 

Viktor bites his tongue. He feels like he might burst. ‘Thank you, Yuuri.’

Yuuri’s eyes crinkle with his pleasure. He holds the sky-coloured bud of one flower against Viktor’s face, petals brushing Viktor’s cheek. ‘Blue suits you.’

‘I know.’

Yuuri leans in. His shadow blocks out the sun, although Viktor couldn’t care less: all the light of the afternoon has settled in Yuuri’s eyelashes. ‘I haven’t offended you, have I?’ 

‘What? No. No.’ Viktor’s stomach drops. He studies Yuuri closely, looking for signs of hurt. ‘How’ve I made you think that?’

‘I thought… I just thought—’ Yuuri touches Viktor’s face absent-mindedly, the crook of his index finger stroking a strand of hair behind Viktor’s ear. ‘—I haven’t seen you in a while. I wondered where you were.’

Viktor looks away, aside, fixing his gaze on the tall blades of grass at his side instead of on Yuuri. He’s too overwhelmed for words. ‘No, yeah, I… I thought you’d want to be with Phichit most of the time.’

‘Sure, I like Phichit.’ Yuuri smiles again, softer now. ‘But I like you too, you know.’

Viktor’s lips shape his silent _oh_. Yuuri bends down and taps Viktor’s nose once, a small and unbearable gesture of affection. Then he sits up and looks away from Viktor, focussing on working the flower stems into some semblance of a crown. It’s looking rather knotty and uneven, but Viktor will wear it until Yakov physically forces him to take it off. That’s how he shows his love.

‘Vitya,’ Yuuri mutters, his eyelashes and voice dropping so low that Viktor has to inch closer to hear him, ‘there’s something wrong with me. I don’t… feel right.’ He glances up suddenly, wide-eyed and vulnerable. These instants of vulnerability are so rare and precious from Yuuri that Viktor doesn’t dare to speak, to break the delicate surface. ‘You can’t tell anyone. Not even Yakov. Please.’

Viktor is lost for a few moments. Then he’s worried that Yuuri might cry, so he takes Yuuri’s damp hand in his own, fingertips smoothing over Yuuri’s bruised knuckles. Yuuri looks down at Viktor, his whole body tensing like a deer poised for flight. What can Viktor give him? What can Viktor even say to him? That Viktor already knows, that everyone knows, and that they don’t think any less of Yuuri for it? That nobody thinks he’s weak?

‘I think you’re perfect.’

He knows he’s wrong as soon as he’s said it. Yuuri isn’t perfect. He’s selfish, sometimes unintentionally cold, terrible at dealing with people crying. But he is also soft-voiced and fawn-eyed and sweet with a quiet, full heart, and Viktor adores him.

‘Around you—’ Viktor struggles to find the words. Yuuri’s Russian is flawless in pronunciation but limited in vocabulary, so they use English most of the time; it frustrates Yuuri, he says, that he isn’t learning any more Russian because all his teammates would rather practise their English on him. ‘You make me, my heart—’ He can’t _say things_ , why can’t he say things? Should he just kiss Yuuri or something? ‘Around you, I think I understand what you feel like when your heart goes very fast.’

Yuuri looks horrified. ‘I hope not!’

‘Ah.’ Viktor winces. ‘Sorry, Yuuri.’

Instead of responding to that, Yuuri entwines his fingers with Viktor’s. His tongue flicks out to wet his chapped lips, just briefly. ‘I thought you’d never kiss me again.’

This isn’t really a tangent — it makes sense to say this, Viktor knows, according to Yuuri-logic. Yuuri doesn’t know the power he has over Viktor. Viktor stares up at him, the misstep temporarily forgotten. 

‘That’s what _I_ thought about you,’ he tells Yuuri.

Yuuri cocks his head, very much like a bird despite all his slender grace. He sets the unfinished flower crown down on the grass beside them and gazes at Viktor expectantly.

Viktor tips his face up and Yuuri kisses him.

They have to be careful not to crush Yuuri’s hard work on the flowers. Viktor’s hands go to Yuuri’s face, to his waist, fighting the urge to trap Yuuri and hold him in place. Yuuri tastes of fresh mint and salt-breath, of warmth, of incurable sweetness. His fingers are clenching in Viktor’s hair. He looks like he _wants_ Viktor here, and his knees are skidding a little bit on the slippery grass, so Viktor rolls them over and settles on top of him to drink all the honey from Yuuri’s lips. The sun’s too bright above them and Viktor’s skin is hot. He must be making desperate, hungry noises, he must sound pitiful, but Yuuri wouldn’t ever despise him — he doesn’t think Yuuri knows how to despise _anyone_.

Yuuri wriggles underneath him and hums with contentment, the sunlight drenching him in gold, letting out little surprised, kittenish sounds as Viktor mouths under his jaw.

‘Vitenka,’ he murmurs, voice slanting on the endearment. Viktor kisses his nose.

* * *

 

END OF PART 1

 

_He is a god in my eyes —_

_the man who is allowed_

_to sit beside you — he_

 

_who listens intimately_

_to the sweet murmur of_

_your voice, the enticing_

 

_laughter that makes my own_

_heart beat fast. If I meet_

_you suddenly, I can’t_

 

_speak — my tongue is broken;_

_a thin flame runs under_

_my skin…_

— Sappho 39, translated by Mary Barnard


	5. Part 2: 21, 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yuuri tries to manage his own blossoming career and his feelings for Viktor. He can barely handle one of these at a time, let alone both.
> 
> CW eating/body image issues, drinking, and reminder that this fic has a general content warning for anxiety and depression

Viktor’s voice drifts carefully through the barred door: ‘Is everything okay?’

‘Yeah,’ Yuuri replies, teeth gritted, ‘everything’s fine.’ Standing in front of the mirror in his fitting-room stall, he places both palms on the swell of his belly as though he can push it back into concave, negative space. Everything’s fine. Eating is fine, eating is _healthy_. He’s gained weight in the off-season. That’s normal. He’ll lose the weight again.

The pair of trousers he’s trying on won’t fit him.

He _can’t_ have gone up a full size. He can’t. He presses down on his belly —

‘Yuuri?’ says Viktor from the entrance of the fitting room. ‘Can I come in?’

Yuuri spreads his palm flat against the surface of the mirror. He leans his weight on it, braces himself, sighs. ‘Come in.’

He turns around only to unlatch the door and let it swing open. He’s still looking at his reflection when Viktor slips in quietly behind him. The department store staff don’t seem to think anything of a very pretty boy joining his friend in the changing stall, as enclosed as it is. They’re just friends, that’s all. No one as beautiful as Viktor would _ever_ consider doing inappropriate things with Yuuri in the men’s fitting room. It’s out of the question.

‘Ah,’ says Viktor, noticing the problem. Yuuri closes his eyes; he doesn’t want to see Viktor’s condemnation.

Then Viktor drops to his knees behind Yuuri. ‘The belt’s stuck.’ He tugs at the strap of the belt which comes with the trousers, hooked frustratingly into the belt-loops by a little plastic fastener. _REMOVE UPON PURCHASE._ Mouth pursed in concentration, Viktor pulls one of the hairpins out of his chignon and warns Yuuri, ‘Hold still.’ The curve of his left hand rests reassuringly on Yuuri’s hip as he fiddles with the belt, working on the tangled part with the hairpin in his right hand.

Yuuri breathes in shallowly, and lets his arm swing down just enough for his fingertips to brush Viktor’s scalp. Viktor’s fine hair sifts through his fingers. He doesn’t want to lose this silent, tender comfort.

At last the knot in the belt-loops gives way, undone by Viktor’s patient work. Yuuri gasps, stifles his gasp, then breathes more easily; the belt loosens and the pressure eases up. The trousers slide on seamlessly. Viktor stands up and helps to hold the waistband in place as Yuuri does up his fly, biting his lip hard as he buckles the belt into place. Yuuri doesn’t miss how Viktor’s arms slide around his waist from behind as soon as he’s done, palms smoothing over Yuuri’s belly through the T-shirt, caressing it.

‘There you are,’ Viktor murmurs. Their twin pairs of eyes study their bodies in the mirror. ‘There’s my beautiful Yuuri.’

Viktor says _beautiful_ like he means it. Viktor is a very good actor. 

Yuuri exhales. ‘Thank you.’

* * *

Yuuri isn’t sure what to think of their relationship, their tendency to dance around each other, _Viktor’s_ tendency to insist on putting on Yuuri’s makeup for him before competitions. He’s well-versed in this latest whim of Viktor’s — Viktor straddling Yuuri’s lap as he wings out Yuuri’s eyeliner, and then being unable to help himself and bending forward to catch Yuuri’s lips with his own. Yuuri always kisses back with open heart and open mouth, his arms tight around Viktor’s waist; and then he has to pull away, breathless, his heart thundering too loud to let him hear anything else. ‘Vitya, please, we’re going to be late.’

He doesn’t know if he’s hurting Viktor. He doesn’t _want_ to. But Viktor is such an enigma these days that it’s beyond Yakov or Yurochka or even Mila to tell what’s going on in Viktor’s head.

Twenty-one, punch-drunk on success, and reigning champion at the Four Continents, Yuuri escapes into the men’s bathroom to try to vomit. He dry-heaves, of course; he hasn’t eaten anything since breakfast, which was several hours ago. So the nausea stays with him but at least he tastes _clean_. Yuuri leaves the stall and goes towards the sink to stare at his ugly lips in the mirror, and finds Viktor standing before the counter.

Yuuri blinks hard. He washes his hands, scrubbing them roughly with the pink liquid soap, and rinses off before he speaks. ‘Hi, Vitya.’

Viktor hums in response. He’s laying out a small bag of cosmetics on the counter between their sinks. Viktor now has a habit of hiding behind makeup when he knows he’ll be facing cameras: he doesn’t have to say much, just flutter his mascara-heavy lashes and let the velvet eyeliner and lip gloss in fuck-off red speak for themselves. Beside him, Yuuri’s face looks pink and swollen in the mirror.

If Viktor knows Yuuri’s been trying not to crumble, he doesn’t show it. He takes out a small drugstore lipstick and examines the bullet with a look of dull satisfaction. His hair falls over one eye, hiding part of his expression.

Yuuri doesn’t understand Viktor these days, and he works hard to try to fix that.

Maybe kissing Yuuri at random times gives Viktor inspiration. To skate better — if it’s even possible to skate better than Viktor as he is now, twenty-two and on top of the world. To keep winning. If Yuuri is an easy source of affection and the physical touch Viktor craves, so be it. They’re friends, aren’t they? Why would Viktor want someone like Yuuri, Viktor who could have anyone?

Yuuri yanks a paper towel from the dispenser and dries his hands. Viktor gives Yuuri a slow sideways glance; his bleak, uninterested silence turns Yuuri’s stomach. So Yuuri drops the balled-up paper towel into the bin beside them and says, ‘Vitenka.’ 

It’s a command. He doesn’t need to say anything more.

Viktor turns towards Yuuri then, lipstick abandoned on the counter and his eyes wide, expectant. Yuuri leans in and puts his fingers gently on Viktor’s chin and kisses him. Viktor’s mouth parts automatically. He has a blank, dazed air these days which makes something go tight inside Yuuri’s chest. So Yuuri tilts his own face up towards Viktor and gently pulls Viktor’s head closer towards him, moving Viktor like a doll. Viktor inhales sharply and seems to come to life. His hands fly to the back of Yuuri’s neck; he searches his way into Yuuri’s mouth, finds Yuuri’s tongue, sucks on it.

Viktor is rough, and quite greedy. Viktor _bites_. Yuuri has to pull away eventually when he runs out of air, and he draws a deep, desperate breath, his head on Viktor’s shoulder, hearing Viktor’s soft whine of frustration above him. Footsteps pass the doorway to the men’s bathroom and disappear down the corridor.

‘I can’t,’ Yuuri gasps, catching his breath, ‘we can’t keep — the door’s open. Somebody might come in.’ He tightens his hold around Viktor’s waist, worried, when he doesn’t hear Viktor respond. ‘Sorry, Vitya.’

Viktor says nothing. Yuuri nuzzles into him, searching for _something_ — he doesn’t know how to communicate with Viktor when Viktor’s media face and private face look exactly the same. Did that sound like a rejection? Has Yuuri been too blunt? Viktor takes flak and praise in equal amounts from the public, the sports press, the RSF, a thunderstorm of eyes on him at all times, and these recent years of record-breaking have made Viktor sensitive. Yuuri hasn’t broken any records that matter — yet.

Yuuri tells him blindly, ‘Vitenka, I don’t ever want to hurt you.’

Viktor’s voice is neutral, distant. ‘Okay.’

* * *

‘Wow, I love that boy and his selfie stick,’ Mila says, pulling the lollipop out of her mouth as she and Viktor watch Phichit glide past — talking excitedly to his phone camera — with Yuuri in pursuit. They’re all sharing the ice just for this evening’s practice. She turns to Viktor, running a hand through her too-long hair to brush it out of the way. ‘Jump battle, Vitya?’

Viktor puts his head on one side to study Mila’s face. He likes how they can talk freely to one another. ‘What have you got that I haven’t already seen?’

‘Mmm.’ Mila considers the question. ‘Triple axel? I think it can rival Yuuri’s, if I do say so myself.’

‘Now that’s not fair,’ replies Viktor pleasantly, already picking up speed so that he and Mila can cross to an emptier area of the rink. Mila keeps pace with him. ‘I haven’t taught you—’

‘ _I_ taught you the triple flip, you _child_.’ 

They end up playing impromptu hockey with a water bottle for about fifteen minutes before Yakov kicks them out of the rink so that Yurochka can practise in peace. Mila is in many ways a solitary creature like Viktor, insouciant, beautiful, clever; she isn’t close to many of the other skaters in ladies’, except Sara. But even Mila runs off to go join Evgenia when she spots the other girl heading towards the convenience store. Alone again, Viktor wanders around the outside of the building, intending to settle himself down on a bench and watch the sunset.

Instead of the sun he finds Yuuri, seated already on Viktor’s favourite bench with his phone in his hands. Yuuri looks up when Viktor comes towards him, looks _through_ Viktor. His face contorts into a pained frown. Viktor stands in front of Yuuri’s bench and tries not to gaze too long at the splotches on Yuuri’s cheeks, at his rose-leaf eyelids.

‘What are people calling you now?’ he asks.

Yuuri frowns harder. The expression looks painful, and Viktor wants to smoothe it away with his fingertips. ‘A fluke.’

‘You’re not a fluke,’ Viktor says. At Yuuri’s tense little motion of the head, cherry-red lip bitten between his teeth, Viktor adds: ‘I would know.’

He gets down on his knees in front of Yuuri. Yuuri puts down the phone without being told and clamps his hands over his ears. Yuuri does that sometimes, even when there isn’t any noise around him. He doesn’t cower: he simply curls in on himself, closes his heart to everything outside himself. Viktor waits for Yuuri to open his eyes and look human again. 

He takes Yuuri’s hands in his own. ‘Yuuri.’

‘I’m fine. I’m fine.’ Yuuri gives Viktor a weak smile. He’s an even worse liar than Viktor is. ‘Maybe I can take bronze?’

‘Silver at least,’ Viktor tells him firmly. ‘Have you seen your competition?’

‘Like you’d know,’ Yuuri laughs; he doesn’t know how much he has the power to hurt. ‘You don’t even remember JJ’s name from one event to the next—’

‘I know exactly who Jean-Jacques Leroy is,’ Viktor says with perfect calm. He presses his mouth to Yuuri’s chapped knuckles. ‘Does he remember who _you_ are? That’s all I care about.’

Yuuri puts his hot, damp palm against Viktor’s cheek. When Viktor looks up at him, his eyes are resting on Viktor like a caress. ‘You’re so—’

‘Petty?’

‘Unstoppable.’

Viktor rests his head against Yuuri’s thigh. He wonders if that’s a good word or a bad word.

* * *

Mila’s lying on the sofa, her feet up on the armrest, when Yuuri comes into the living room and asks her mildly: ‘Are you responsible for the giant balloon that says “Fuck You Dimitri” in the bathroom?’

‘There are a lot of Dimitris around,’ replies Mila, equally mild. Sara Crispino is sprawled in the armchair beside her with her legs across Mila’s lap, and Mila appears to be massaging her feet. ‘There’s no guarantee that this one is referring to Vitya’s Dimitri.’

Yuuri wrinkles his nose at her. ‘He isn’t Vitya’s Dimitri now that they’ve broken up. That’s the problem.’

‘Oh, Yuuri,’ Mila sighs, stretching out more comfortably on the sofa. ‘You have such a way with words.’

At this point Viktor emerges into the living room, coming in so quietly that Yuuri wouldn’t have known he was there if he hadn’t been facing the doorway when Viktor appeared. With that catlike tread Viktor pads across the room and settles himself on the floor, in front of the living room’s other armchair. He’s put a sizeable distance between himself and Mila and Sara. Viktor doesn’t like touching anyone lately, Yuuri’s noticed. But Yuuri goes to Viktor’s side and climbs into the armchair, and Viktor meets him with a half-drowsy smile.

Viktor’s hair is still damp from the shower and little flyaway strands lie against his temples and neck. He leans against Yuuri’s knee, which is his way of giving permission to be touched. So Yuuri pokes the little swirl of hair at the centre of Viktor’s scalp, cautiously at first, then harder, and lays his palm flat against Viktor’s scalp in a clumsy attempt at petting. ‘Who initiated the breakup?’ he asks.

Viktor doesn’t answer. Face upturned towards the ceiling’s single weak lightbulb, he looks tranquil, like a painted doll. Sara — one foot dangling over Mila’s bare knee — turns her head to gaze at Viktor more directly.

‘I don’t understand why,’ Viktor says at last. His voice is light, carefree. ‘I think I’m fairly attractive.’

‘Yes you are, baby,’ says loyal-hearted Mila.

Sara (who has no insight into the inner workings of the Russian team, but is keen to help anyway) adds decisively: ‘Dimitri, or whatever his name is, doesn’t deserve you!’

Yuuri doesn’t dare to agree out loud. Viktor’s shaking his head again though, his dishevelled hair shifting under Yuuri’s hands like a kitten rustling against Yuuri’s knee. 

‘He’s too good for me.’

‘No, he’s not!’ Mila snaps. Sara claps a hand over Mila’s mouth to keep her from waking up Yurochka. Mila quietens at once, but wiggles her eyebrows aggressively at Viktor over Sara’s hand to emphasise that her point still stands. Viktor’s never raised his voice around Yuuri; sometimes, Yuuri wishes he would.

Yuuri places his hands on either side of Viktor’s head and tries to pet him more skilfully. Viktor shifts again, uncertain. ‘Why do you think he’s too good for you?’

Viktor shrugs. He’s bending forward so that Yuuri can’t see his face. ‘Pretty.’

‘That’s not much.’

Viktor twists around and nestles into the bend of Yuuri’s leg, rubbing his cheek against Yuuri’s unwashed jeans. Yuuri doesn’t know what to do with him.

‘I know what you’re going through, Viktor,’ Sara soothes. ‘I can’t even look at a pretty girl without going weak in the knees, how am I supposed to find love?’

Viktor raises his head. He and Mila make meaningful eye contact behind Sara’s back.

‘Listen, Vityusha.’ Mila leans over Sara to fix Viktor with a ferocious sparkle in her eye. ‘If I was straight, and you were straight, and I was single and you were single—’

‘Mila?’ Yuuri says delicately.

‘Don’t do it!’ Sara gasps.

‘—and you were interested, and I was interested—’

‘You’ll break him!’

‘—I would totally date you!’

‘Is Vitya crying?’ Yakov demands from the hallway. ‘What did you do to him?’

‘Nothing, Yakov!’ says Mila hastily, and Yuuri, by now completely out of his depth, slides from the armchair and sinks onto the floor to cuddle Viktor.

* * *

They never go out dancing together. Yuuri isn’t sure why; he has a vague idea, though. He can’t imagine how Viktor would feel about Yuuri getting with someone at a club right in front of him. How _Yuuri_ would feel. They could always — not do that, of course, have a light sweet night out as friends and head back to the hotel with their arms round each other’s waists for support. But Yuuri knows what he’s like when he drinks and he’s seen Viktor drunk, so Yuuri has no illusions about that scenario happening.

Sometimes, however, they run into each other at the same clubs. They see each other across the packed dancefloor, usually; they don’t often _meet_. Yuuri moves in his own circles and Viktor moves in other parts of their shared world, warm and glorious and unattainable, their elbows brushing only by accident.

The week after Viktor loses his most recent boyfriend, Yuuri goes out. Viktor goes out too — Yuuri realises this when he discovers Viktor in the two a.m. darkness, lit by sweeping artificial lights and the thrum of bass beats. The music’s louder than Yuuri can take on his more sober nights out, which feels good, which feels just the right kind of overwhelming; he spins around to find Viktor, to feel the heavy vibrations slinking up through both their bodies and nudging Yuuri left and right into the bodies of nearby strangers. Viktor’s skin glistens under the swaying lights, and he’s put his hair up in a ponytail which is half-undone by now, silver strands framing his face. His eyeliner has held up surprisingly well despite all the sweat and glitter clumping his lashes together. Yuuri squeezes through the crowd towards him and Viktor kisses Yuuri hungrily, his mouth open and hot, before turning away to wedge himself between pressing bodies and grasping hands on his way to the bathroom.

Yuuri spends a little more time on the dancefloor before the flood of sensation gets too much for him, too. He hasn’t done enough shots to be really, truly gone. He’s got his shirttails knottedtogether above his waist to keep them out of the way and men keep touching him through his jeans, so he slips out into the smokers’ area and drinks in deep swallows of the cold air.

He isn’t sure how long he stays outside. He hasn’t been wearing a watch and he stopped checking his phone somewhere around midnight. In the smokers’ area he turns down two offers of cigarettes, something Yuuri’s pretty sure is cocaine, and what he thinks might be a pass at him but doesn’t dare to label. Logically Yuuri knows that he’s attractive — all professional athletes are. But there isn’t anything special about him, and the club tonight is crammed with handsome boys.

Viktor emerges from the men’s bathroom into the open, looking flushed and unhappy. Like Yuuri, he turns up his face to the night sky. Yuuri lingers in the shadows near some battered fold-out chairs, not wanting to make Viktor feel that Yuuri’s forcing his presence on him. But Viktor spots Yuuri in the blink of an eye, and makes his way over to Yuuri without hesitating.

‘Want to go dance?’

Yuuri nods, not daring to speak because he’s too tipsy to control himself. He doesn’t look to see who comes out of the men’s bathroom behind Viktor.

They dance for three songs, maybe four, until Yuuri’s fingers are deep in Viktor’s hair and he’s got his face buried in Viktor’s neck. Viktor’s breath is sour-sweet with vodka and Yuuri reeks even worse; Yuuri’s favourite songs are not Viktor’s favourite songs, but Viktor plays along, equally tolerant of the music and Yuuri’s arms around his waist. He hisses at the men behind them who try to grope Yuuri and Yuuri steers them away from someone who looks suspiciously like Viktor’s ex.

Fortunately, Yuuri lifts his head in time to catch Viktor staring at the ceiling somewhere above them, expression lost in the disco lights.

‘Vitya?’

‘I want to go home,’ Viktor says quietly, his head dropping onto Yuuri’s shoulder. His lips find Yuuri’s collarbone. Yuuri lets his hand slip down from Viktor’s hair — Viktor gives a muted whimper of protest — and entwines his fingers with Viktor’s.

‘Okay. Okay, we’ll go.’

(Later they kiss on the landing with Viktor’s thumbs stroking the bare strip of skin exposed above Yuuri’s waistband and, as always, Yuuri thinks: _Remember this moment. Keep it safe._ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [fic playlist here](https://open.spotify.com/user/kevystel/playlist/1GwqGJxR7Y3gj17B6g8rLA?si=7bdCPqfzSMKR9cGC3ylbZA)


	6. Part 2: 17, 18

Sometimes they understand each other completely, and those moments are as fine and precious as glass. After Yuuri accidentally breaks a hockey player’s heart and Viktor messes things up with his third boyfriend of the season, they sit on the edge of the bridge overlooking St. Petersburg and talk; after all, they were friends before they were anything else.

Yuuri swings his dangling legs back and forth, an ordinary boy with the silhouette of his dark head framed against the sunset. In the failing light he looks neither pretty nor un-pretty, nor particularly special in any way — only young, a tall-for-his-age teenager who rolls up the cuffs of his jeans, a simple and lovable creature. ‘Well, I’m glad we’re not dating, because I think I’d be a shit boyfriend.’

‘Hmm.’ Viktor looks down at his toes. He wears his hair in plaits nowadays, and tiny ribbons are woven into the parts that he’s combed painstakingly smooth — he knows that the style makes him look very young, and Yuuri loves and hates it in equal measure for that reason. ‘I _am_ a shit boyfriend.’

‘Now I’m not arguing with that, since I don’t know firsthand,’ Yuuri replies in his gentle, devastating manner. ‘But to be fair — to be fair to yourself, Vitya — you do choose really shit boyfriends.’

Viktor blinks. He has to pause and process this for a second. ‘Why don’t you dislike my boyfriends?’

‘What?’

‘Why don’t you—’

‘No, I heard you the first time. I do dislike your boyfriends. I think they’ve all been assholes to you.’

Faced with Yuuri’s wonderful frankness, Viktor shrinks into the surface of the bridge beneath them. He doesn’t know how to deal with Yuuri saying lovely, protective things like this. They are certainly not dating, and Viktor isn’t even sure if they like each other in that way; he has the vague idea that if he dates enough people who are not Yuuri, he’ll be able to figure that out. 

He’s won the European Championships this year. Nobody ever taught Viktor how to be a person.

‘I mean—’ He sends Yuuri a tentative glance through his eyelashes. ‘Why haven’t you ever been jealous of my boyfriends?’

Yuuri looks back at Viktor: sidelong, startled, and then with all the warmth of his direct gaze. He’s too beautiful to look at for long. ‘Vitya, I couldn’t be jealous of someone you liked if I tried.’

* * *

Guang Hong claps his hands to his cheeks and keens softly as Viktor twizzles by at public practice. ‘He’s so cool,’ he whimpers. Next to him, Leo de la Iglesia looks down at Guang Hongsympathetically and puts an arm around Guang Hong’s shoulders.

‘We _know_ ,’ Yurochka scoffs, abandoning them all in a whiff of contempt to go practise his spins in a different corner of the rink. Seung-gil, his body arranged in a perfect crouching position on the ice, is permitting Phichit to wheel him around the rink by pushing him from behind. ‘Don’t inflate Vitya’s ego any further.’

(Seung-gil glides silently between them with the power of Phichit-engine, wearing a completely deadpan expression on his face.)

‘Yuuri understands. Don’t you, Yuuri?’

‘He’s watched _Titanic_ thirteen times,’ Yuuri says. ‘He has posters of Britney Spears on his wall from 2006.’

Otabek Altin smirks.

* * *

Worlds is a disaster. Viktor medals. Yuuri doesn’t. Yuuri — ha, it’s funny, actually, how much of an understatement that is. 

Yakov says all he needs to say. Yuuri listens to Yakov for as long as he can hear him, and then — at some point in the tirade — he finds that he’s not hearing Yakov any more, he’s listening to his own thoughts instead, and they are just as harsh on Yuuri if not more.

‘Pick yourself up,’ Yakov says, brusque, scorching. ‘It’s not the end of the world.’

Yuuri is seventeen and it feels like the end of the world.

He walks from one end of the corridor to the other and refills his water bottle from the cooler. He stands there for a long moment to calm himself like he’s seen Viktor do, tipping his head back, drawing in slow, shallow breaths. It doesn’t work. Yuuri is not Viktor. He’s tried.

Viktor took bronze, a position he is not happy with. Viktor has gone for a long walk. Yuuri goes for a long bathroom cry.

Later, Yuuri and Viktor stand elbow to elbow in the lift and watch the lift’s doors slide shut. They’re alone, finally. The banquet lasted for hours and Yuuri’s eyes and mouth hurt.

The only words Viktor said to Yuuri all day were, ‘Your eyeliner’s smeared,’ gesturing at Yuuri’s red-rimmed eyes and smudged concealer after coming back from his walk. Yuuri, not trusting himself to speak, responded with a curt nod. Then he fixed his makeup himself.

Now, Yuuri looks sideways. The iron dread in his chest has settled into a familiar, dull weight somewhere near the bottom of his stomach. He can almost ignore it. Viktor’s eyelashes are pale without his mascara and the curve of his mouth sags without the will to pull it into artificial smiles. He’s watching the floor buttons light up one by one as the lift goes up, barely moving; his eyes are a dim blue. He looks tired. He looks calm. Yuuri knows better.

The second Yuuri opens his mouth to speak, he knows he can’t go back. Viktor tenses beside him. Yuuri swallows. 

‘Say something.’

‘You were awful,’ Viktor says bluntly. He doesn’t hesitate. Keeping his gaze fixed on the floor buttons in front of him, he blinks slowly: once, twice. ‘You can do better. Next time.’

Yuuri takes a deep shuddering breath. He knows it’s true. Viktor thinks Yuuri can do better, so it must be true. He’s not sure whether that makes things better or worse.

There’s a soft ding as the lift reaches Yuuri’s floor. Yuuri’s feet move of their own volition. They take him across the lift’s threshold, stop, move his body back around to meet Viktor’s questioning glance.

‘Come in and help me take my makeup off.’

Viktor’s nodding before Yuuri’s finished the sentence, his expression weary and blank. His whole face looks slack, like a doll-child. Yuuri bites his lip hard. The bronze medal’s still hanging around Viktor’s neck, and Viktor notices Yuuri looking at it as he follows Yuuri down the corridor. His eyes take on a new sharpness and as soon as he’s stepped into Yuuri’s hotel room, he rips the medal off and tosses it into a corner — as if it’s worthless, as if bronze means nothing to him.

‘ _Stop that_ ,’ Yuuri hisses. His chest is starting to hurt again. To hide his face, he stoops over Viktor’s abandoned medal (any medal that isn’t gold is worthless to Viktor), picks it up, and lays it carefully on the countertop. ‘Get the makeup wipes. Sit down.’

He doesn’t hear Viktor’s response. Maybe it’s nothing more than a gulped-back inhale. Yuuri squats down and lets himself rest his forehead on his knees for just an instant, but that’s still too long — when he looks up, he’s met with Viktor’s voice, low and uncertain.

‘Yuuri?’

‘Yeah. Just.’ Yuuri goes over to the dressing table and sits down. ‘I’m okay. Just, please.’

Viktor stands at Yuuri’s side and bends over him with the makeup wipe, dabbing ineffectually at Yuuri’s cheeks, before he clicks his tongue in irritation and climbs into Yuuri’s lap.

Yuuri’s too tired to protest. He puts his hands on Viktor’s waist.

Viktor works quietly, cupping Yuuri’s face in his palm, combing fine-boned fingers through Yuuri’s hair. His champagne-warm breath flutters against Yuuri’s eyelids. His legs are long enough for his bare feet to brush the carpet on either side of Yuuri’s hips. The white noise in Yuuri’s head sputters, subsides a little, and spreads out into blank comfort.

Yuuri opens his eyes only once while Viktor is wiping off his makeup. Viktor’s gaze is focussed in a good way — anger gone, focussed on Yuuri, the slant of his pale eyebrows like birds’ wings held still. He looks oddly delicate and curious and young. Yuuri raises his eyes, meets Viktor’s gaze. They don’t talk.

Viktor passes the makeup wipe over Yuuri’s mouth once, then again, applying slightly more pressure. The lipstick comes off. Viktor’s fingertips caress Yuuri’s chin. After some time Yuuri becomes aware that Viktor’s put the makeup wipe down and is simply sitting there in Yuuri’s lap, cradling Yuuri’s face in his hands, the pad of his thumb resting against Yuuri’s lips.

Yuuri breathes in and then out, his heartbeat distant in his ears. Viktor’s thumb traces the curve of Yuuri’s bottom lip and presses gently there. Yuuri’s hands are still resting on Viktor’s waist. Viktor wets his own bottom lip with his tongue and looks at Yuuri through the fragile curtain of his eyelashes. Yuuri closes his eyes.

It’s like a dam breaking. Viktor slumps forward and buries his face in Yuuri’s shoulder, slinging his arms around Yuuri’s neck. Yuuri wraps his arms around Viktor and pulls him close and holds him tightly. They’re both hard, but it doesn’t matter. Yuuri strokes Viktor’s hair. Viktor presses his lips to Yuuri’s collarbone. They stay like that for a long time.


	7. Part 2: 22, 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys try very hard to communicate like adults. This is the Sochi GPF chapter so cw for pretty intense anxiety and depression, but it's also the end of angst in this fic, promise!

They get home at different times most days, for Viktor usually rides his bicycle and Yuuri prefers to walk. In the tiny front hallway of their four-person shared apartment, Viktor steps out of his shoes, shrugs out of his jacket, wanders towards the living room. Mila’s bedroom door is closed and he can hear her faint voice from within, sounding too relaxed to be talking to anyone important. She’s probably FaceTiming Georgi, who seems to be thoroughly enjoying his retirement. Viktor wonders what Georgi’s hair looks like now; he hasn’t spoken to Georgi in over a year.

He drops his keys on the kitchen counter. Later, he knows, he’ll forget where he put them. Down the narrow corridor where their bedrooms sit side by side like small perfect animals, his footsteps leave no trace; he peels off one sock, then the other, thinks briefly of trying to find out where his laundry basket has gone, and then decides that task can wait till another day. If his bare soles were sweaty he could leave prints on the wooden floorboards to mark his presence and remind the other occupants of his life that he was once here, like so: _x x x x_.

It occurs to Viktor that his mood might improve dramatically if he drank some water. So he makes dinner, and eats it.

In the utility area off the kitchen, that L-shaped space where they hang up their laundry and Yurochka (or Yura, as he now insists on being called) regularly burns his T-shirts while ironing them, a cheap magnifying mirror sits on the counter next to the empty Coke can with the lid cut off, the container Yuuri uses to store his makeup brushes. Viktor has a fat bag of skincare and cosmetic products. Bottles and powders and tubes. Mila has a tidy, small box with many shelves, and Yura dips into her stash whenever he needs to wear something on his face. Viktor’s caught Yura shining his phone flashlight directly into his own face to check that his foundation shade matches him. Yuuri has about two half-eaten lipsticks, a single cushion foundation in a compact so battered that Viktor doesn’t want to know how old it is, and a janky sharpener which chews up his eyeliner pencils. 

Viktor suspects that Yuuri exaggerates the state of his own grooming routine because he enjoys Viktor’s scandalised noises. Viktor gets free products from sponsors by the truckload, and is forever trying to palm them off on Yuuri. Yuuri tends to say, ‘Okay, but only if you put them on me,’ and sometimes he wiggles his butt while saying it. He does wonderful things to Viktor’s insides.

It’s only been two hours since Viktor got home and already he wants to be back at the rink. He sits on his bedroom floor and tries to do stretches. He can’t — he’s tired. His body is tired.

He has a nail kit in his nightstand’s top drawer, with cuticle sticks and cotton pads and bags and bags of tiny bottles. Most of his nail polishes have dried up in the bottle. He climbs into bed.

The evening’s much too young for Viktor to be going to bed, but the night will come quickly. Morning will come quickly. Then it’ll be another day.

The last time Viktor enjoyed himself (that he can remember) was the press conference at last year’s Worlds after the medal ceremony. Fifth time on the podium in seniors, first time winning gold. He can’t remember where he put the medal; he will find it sometime soon. Along with his laundry basket, hopefully.

He might’ve been bored. (There are pictures of him eating chocolate.) Or angry. Reporters like to get aggressive with Viktor. Whatever the provocation was, Viktor leaned into the microphone and said in his purest English, ‘Listen, if you still think I am heterosexual I don’t know what to say to you,’ and Mila laughed so hard she cried. 

The fallout from _that_ remark was quite entertaining, which is why Viktor has selected that incident as his prepared answer just in case anyone ever tries to understand what he considers fun (nobody ever asks).

He does not really understand himself these days. So he goes to sleep.

When Viktor wakes up (long enough to crank down the thermostat with great deliberation so that the bedroom will be too cold, and he’ll shiver and be uncomfortable underneath his blankets), Yuuri has been inside his room. There is a small bar of chocolate on his nightstand, next to the Dostoyevsky novel left neglected for months and the comb with strands of silver hair sticking to its teeth. Yuuri’s left him a note. Viktor carefully folds up the note without reading it and puts it away in his bottom drawer, where he keeps other precious things. After some consideration, he leaves the chocolate bar in the coldest corner of his room, where it will stay chilled for a long time (according to Viktor-logic). He doesn’t allow himself to eat sweets these days.

Soon it will be morning.

* * *

Another day.

He wakes up.

Breakfast is healthy. He tries to subtly make sure Yuuri eats enough for breakfast and doesn’t feel guilty about his body’s needs. Just to check on Yuuri. But Viktor’s not very good at being subtle.

* * *

Another day. He props his phone carefully on the rink barrier so that he can film himself at practice and watch the videos later that evening, obsessively rewinding and pausing and mentally correcting slight missteps, sloppiness, imperfections. It doesn’t occur to him that he could ask somebody else to film for him until Mila offers to do it. But Mila has to focus on her own skating.

He goes to sleep at nine p.m., eight p.m., earlier, and doesn’t see any of his rinkmates outside of practice time. Yuuri is upset because he’s lost his earphones, which are his most treasured possession, and Viktor offers to hand over his own; Viktor doesn’t need them. But Yuuri seems to be avoiding Viktor.

Okay.

* * *

He wakes up. He goes for a run.

His legs hurt.

* * *

He’s winding up for the start of this season. First up is the Grand Prix Final, which he’ll probably win again. That’s nice.

He’s always thought of himself as an extrovert but now he feels drained.

* * *

‘Are you listening to me, Vitya?’ snarls Yakov at practice.

* * *

‘Viktor Nikiforov can’t come to the phone because he’s dead,’ says Yura flatly. He’s practically spitting into the phone. ‘Call again and I’ll set Yakov on you.’ He hangs up the phone with more force than is strictly necessary, and turns to Mila. ‘Do you know how to block a caller from our landline? This fucking paparazzi guy won’t stop calling.’

‘How the hell did he get our number?’

‘I don’t know!’

‘I think I am alive?’ says Viktor from the doorway, tentative.

‘Yesterday Vitya cried over that Kafka story about the giant insect,’ Yura tells Yuuri, his voice thick with contempt, as Yuuri passes the doorway to the living room with his bath towel draped around his neck. ‘He’s a loser.’

‘It’s a very sad story,’ Yuuri replies.

Viktor leans in the doorway and gazes after Yuuri’s retreating back as Yuuri, freshly showered and still drying his hair, goes into his bedroom.

‘Well, look what you’ve done, Yura.’ Mila throws herself onto the sofa. ‘Tomorrow it’ll be in all the Russian tabloids! “Is Viktor Nikiforov dead?”’

Viktor snorts. ‘“Did Yuri Plisetsky kill him?”’

‘Touch my things one more time and I _will_ ,’ Yura snaps. Then he and Mila dissolve into chatter about something to do with landlines.

Viktor drifts away from them and towards Yuuri’s bedroom; he craves being kissed. Yuuri’s sitting on the end of his bed with the door open, squeezing the last water droplets out of his hair with the towel — and he looks up, meets Viktor’s eyes, and smiles.

‘Hi, Vitya.’

Viktor bites his lip. His heart jumps. ‘Can I come in?’

Yuuri’s dark, soft deer-eyes widen in surprise. ‘Of course.’ He pats the bed beside him. ‘Why ever not?’

Viktor doesn’t say anything. He sits on the bed next to Yuuri and feels nothing at all.

Yuuri lifts his hand — drops it — raises it again, and brushes the backs of his fingers against Viktor’s cheeks, too fleeting for comfort. ‘You’ve been quiet.’ His voice is low, gentle; how Viktor could ever have thought him cold, Viktor doesn’t know. ‘Are you avoiding me?’

‘What? No,’ Viktor says, startled out of silence. ‘I. I don’t know.’

‘Mmm.’ Yuuri sucks on his lower lip, the plush of it caught between his teeth. He’s winning, still winning — he didn’t place any lower than bronze for the whole of last season. At banquets and press appearances and pair interviews, Viktor flashes his usual distant smile at the cameras and Yuuri follows it a second later with his own small, shy smile, a young and powerful couple. ‘You’ve been sleeping a lot recently.’

‘I’m tired.’

‘Okay.’ Yuuri cocks his head then, eyelashes casting long shadows beneath his lids. A flush spreads like watercolour throughout his face, from rosy lips to cheeks to kissable nose. ‘Come to bed with me later?’

Viktor stares at him for a moment, stunned. ‘I have to go cut my fingernails.’

* * *

In the locker room after practice, Lilia’s presence itches at the back of Viktor’s neck. Lilia doesn’t particularly like Viktor; after Yuuri’s left the room, Viktor turns at last and faces her cold gaze head-on. ‘What?’

He doesn’t bother keeping the irritation out of his voice. He is sweet and attractive with everybody else who speaks to him.

‘You spoil Yuuri,’ Lilia says, her tone neutral. ‘There were many things on the tip of your tongue just now which you did not choose to say to him.’

‘And would you have said them?’

Lilia raises one perfectly groomed eyebrow — not quite a sneer, but the sentiment is there. ‘Be as gentle with yourself as you are with our Yuuri,’ she tells him.

Viktor turns his back on her deliberately and sits down on the bench to tie his shoelaces. He doesn’t understand what she means. He’s not gentle with Yuuri, he’s _not_ ; he’s often cruel. Yuuri should be wise enough to recognise cruelty when it’s set in front of him. Maybe Viktor is bad at being cruel, too. Maybe she's mocking him because she can see how bad he is at being gentle.

He doesn’t remember Lilia ever paying attention to how he treats his fellow skaters. He doesn’t remember inviting her to eavesdrop on his conversations with Yuuri, either. Everything Viktor does seems to be in public these days. He can’t talk. He can’t think. He can’t so much as jerk off without somebody knowing. (Okay, that might be an exaggeration.) The only time the world is allowed to see him is when he’s on the ice, completely alone.

He bends down and rests his forehead on his knees for a second or two. He needs to rest. He needs to be away from competing for a while. He’s turning into somebody hateful.

* * *

The Grand Prix Final starts out well. Yuuri places first in the short program, Viktor narrowly second. They are a fraction, a _fraction_ , of a point apart. Lilia is pleased. Yakov shakes Yuuri with two balled-up fists clutching Yuuri’s jacket, his furiously impotent way of showing affection, and gives Yuuri some ferocious words that are probably meant to be inspiring and encouraging. Viktor says nothing, and skates his free program magnificently two days later.

By the time Yuuri emerges onto the ice to start his free skate, he is already feeling very sick.

* * *

The reporters in the corridor won’t stop crowding them, so Viktor takes him somewhere quiet. Yakov has Yuuri’s phone. Viktor doesn’t raise his voice to get people out of their way, although he comes very close to it; when he puts his arm around Yuuri’s shoulders, Yuuri can feel him trembling with the fine tension of holding his own temper in check.

Yuuri manages to catch his breath long enough to say through the harsh, chest-shattering sobs, ‘Where are we going?’

Viktor doesn’t look at him. ‘Carpark.’

Yuuri can’t. He can’t do this. Viktor has to — Viktor has to go and accept his gold medal, he can’t waste his time with Yuuri, and _Yuuri_ can’t be alone with him when Viktor has just won the GPF and Yuuri has destroyed himself spectacularly in front of Viktor and Yura and everyone else. He gasps out, hardly aware that he’s speaking until he’s already said it, ‘I can’t… Vitenka, please, I don’t want to be with you.’

There’s a long pause. Yuuri cups his hands over his mouth and tries to breathe.

Only when the world’s clamour in his ears subsides a little does he open his eyes; only then does Viktor turn his head and _look_ at Yuuri, his eyes a flat painted blue. ‘Okay,’ Viktor says.

Yuuri shivers violently; his lungs are shaking. He can’t stop shivering but Viktor doesn’t move to touch him. Viktor’s arm has long since left Yuuri’s shoulders. ‘I didn’t mean it like that!’ He didn’t, he _swears_. And Viktor knows he didn’t! He knows Viktor can read him better than that! He wipes his eyes with his sleeve, which doesn’t really help. ‘I just, Vitya, I just need to be alone for a while.’

Viktor’s eyelashes dip as he blinks slowly — calm and restrained, with impeccable patience. ‘Well, walk away then.’

‘Vitya.’

‘I said walk away.’

So Yuuri goes to the bathroom.

* * *

At the banquet Lilia puts her hand on Yuuri’s shoulder after his sixth glass of champagne and says: ‘Yuuri?’

Yuuri blinks up at her dizzily; she’s still taller than him when she wears heels.

‘Go to bed before you embarrass yourself.’

Yuuri loves her very much. She has his best interests in mind. Somehow he finds himself outside the hotel, wandering from tree to tree in the darkness and his only good suit as he struggles through the dizziness to remember how to get to his room, and then Viktor’s voice comes from behind him.

‘Why are you running away?’

Yuuri rests his hand on a pillar for support. This turns into him leaning on the pillar with the full weight of his body, and Viktor is close beside him, smelling hot with champagne and cologne and keeping a vice-like grip on Yuuri’s shoulder to hold him upright. Viktor’s nails are short and bare. He hasn’t painted his nails in what seems like forever. Why hasn’t Viktor been painting his nails?

‘What?’

‘Did I say something?’ Yuuri shakes his head to clear it. ‘No. Sorry. Sorry.’ Then he remembers Viktor’s own question, and he shakes his head again without stopping until Viktor, clearly struggling to be gentle, pokes him in the nose to make him hold still. ‘I’m not running away.’

Viktor’s eyebrows rise.

‘Lilia told me to go to bed.’

‘Ah,’ says Viktor. ‘Doesn’t she ever tell you to just smile and endure it?’ He tilts his head, testing his practised smile on Yuuri; he _knows_ Yuuri’s never impressed by it. ‘Or is that only for me?’

‘Vitya,’ Yuuri says, helpless; he can’t _speak_. He’s been crying for hours. He wishes he could skate to show Viktor what he means to say — but oh, that’s laughable now, isn’t it? Yuuri and skating? ‘Congratulations on your gold medal,’ he tells Viktor instead, and even means it with a sincere lack of bitterness.

Viktor smiles, which looks like it hurts his face. 

‘I’ll bring you another gold medal, shall I?’ Viktor reaches out and cradles Yuuri’s face in his cool hands. ‘That’s all I am, just a bunch of gold medals.’

‘No, that’s not true.’ Yuuri can feel the swell of consternation rising up inside his chest: he might burst, he might break down again, and he doesn’t want to do that now in front of Viktor. ‘Vitya, I know that’s not true.’

‘To everyone. Except you.’

‘ _You_ know that’s not true!’

Viktor smiles, pleasant and pitiless as a medieval angel. ‘Who, then?’

‘Yakov!’

‘Shhh.’ Viktor puts a finger to Yuuri’s lips; he is visibly quite drunk. ‘Shhh, shhh.’

‘I should… I have to go to bed.’ Yuuri reaches out in turn and brushes Viktor’s mouth with his fingertips. Viktor closes his eyes at Yuuri’s touch. ‘Vitenka—’

‘No, don’t call me that,’ replies Viktor, very gentle. He turns on his heel to return to the banquet. ‘See you at the Olympics.’

And there it is: Yuuri’s crying again.  ‘You know I can’t go to the Olympics!’ he shouts after Viktor. ‘Why did you have to say that?’

* * *

The knock on Yuuri’s door comes well after midnight. Yuuri’s not asleep; he feels hollowed out, like a bullet casing eaten from the inside. But he makes himself get up and go to answer the door.

Yuuri and Viktor look at each other in the doorway for a long time and say nothing.

‘It’s three in the morning,’ Yuuri tells him at last.

‘I don’t feel well,’ Viktor says simply, like a child. So Yuuri opens his arms.

‘Come here, Vitya.’

Instead of accepting the hug, Viktor pads across the carpet past Yuuri and climbs into Yuuri’s bed. His hair is still wet from the shower, long strings clinging damply to his temples and neck. He looks about as terrible as Yuuri feels. In such moments neither of them are graceful, and Yuuri trips over Viktor’s abandoned shoes on his way back to bed.

‘Turn off the light, please,’ Viktor mutters from the pillows as Yuuri passes the light switch.

Yuuri says, trying to sound lighter than he feels, ‘Maybe I want to look at you.’

Viktor rolls over onto his back and fixes Yuuri with his hard blue stare so that Yuuri can see the dark bruises under his eyes. ‘Turn off the light.’

Yuuri obliges him then, and gets into bed beside Viktor. 

For quite a long time they lie next to each other in silence. Yuuri almost drops into sleep, and he’s pretty sure he can hear Viktor snoring. Then Viktor stirs beside him, and Yuuri opens his eyes in the darkness to find Viktor gazing at him.

‘I didn’t mean what I said. Not like that — not the way you took it.’ Yuuri lifts his hand and taps Viktor’s nose, twice. ‘Before the carpark. You know?’

‘I know.’

‘Mmm.’

‘Me neither,’ Viktor whispers. ‘Outside the banquet.’

Yuuri tenses, fully awake now. He’s not stupid. He can recognise cruelty when it’s put in front of him. ‘Yes, you did.’

Viktor can’t lie, so he closes his eyes rather than look at Yuuri. ‘Sorry.’

‘Hmm?’

‘For making you cry.’ Viktor sighs, a defeated, hollow sound. ‘ _That’s_ what I didn’t mean.’

Yuuri breathes in, and then out. In the darkness Viktor’s hand finds his, and they squeeze each other’s hands tightly.

‘Vitya,’ he mumbles, and feels Viktor flutter into alertness beside him, ‘let’s stay together until I retire.’

‘I hope you never retire.’

Yuuri sobs out loud. Viktor sits up in bed faster than Yuuri’s ever seen him move and smacks the bedside lamp on with a fist.

‘Turn the light off!’

Viktor drops down onto the covers beside Yuuri. His eyes are wide and panicked, but he does switch the lamp off again. Yuuri slumps forward and hugs Viktor, and Viktor allows himself to be touched, rocking Yuuri back and forth, his eyes distant.

‘Yuuri,’ Viktor says very quietly above him, ‘are you retiring?’

Yuuri tries to draw breath. He slams his forehead on Viktor’s shoulder (Viktor winces) to try to knock the air back into his lungs. He’s trying so hard without results — all the love around him, Yura and Mila and Viktor and everyone else, their clear faith in him, their frenzied and untidy affection, he doesn’t deserve it. He hasn’t earned any of it.

‘Maybe.’

Viktor doesn’t say a word. Then Yuuri feels wetness on his own face that isn’t his, and he looks up to find tears on Viktor’s cheeks.

‘Wow,’ says Yuuri, stunned more by _this_ than by anything else in the whole bizarre day. He reaches up to brush Viktor’s hair out of his eyes. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen you really cry.’

Viktor slaps his hand away. Yuuri recoils — what has he said that Viktor might’ve misunderstood? Has he hurt Viktor? He never wants to. They never want to hurt each other, even when it happens. Neither of them have been well for a long time.

At last, for lack of any better ideas, Yuuri has to resort to simple words. ‘Why are you crying?’

‘I don’t know,’ Viktor sobs.

Yuuri doesn’t know what to do so he draws Viktor close to him instead of speaking. They don’t know what’s happening to themselves or each other, but they try so hard to be good for one another and they have to keep trying; they love each other too much not to try. They have to talk things out and try to make things better. They have to.

‘Yuuri—’

‘Shhh, shhh,’ Yuuri soothes. He smoothes the damp hair away from Viktor’s forehead. ‘Let’s talk in the morning.’

* * *

In the morning Viktor gets on a flight to Japan. He’s at the airport by the time Yuuri wakes up, and long gone by the time Yakov or anybody else figures out what’s going on.

* * *

 

END OF PART 2

 

_My heart’s aflutter!_

_I am standing in the bath tub_

_crying. Mother, mother_

_who am I? If he_

_will just come back once_

_and kiss me on the face_

_his coarse hair brush_

_my temple, it’s throbbing!_

 

_then I can put on my clothes_

_I guess, and walk the streets._

 

_[…]_

 

_Now I am quietly waiting for_

_the catastrophe of my personality_

_to seem beautiful again,_

_and interesting, and modern._

— Frank O’Hara, ‘Mayakovsky’


	8. Part 3: 22, 23 (Hasetsu)

_—15, 16—_

Viktor’s mouth falls open slightly, and then shuts. From some distant place inside himself, Yuuri watches Viktor’s eyelids flicker as he processes what Yuuri has just said. 

‘Yuuri,’ says Viktor, ‘please don’t retire after juniors.’

‘There’s no point!’

Viktor’s tongue darts out to touch his bottom lip; he starts to speak, but stops again. He reaches out to push a strand of Yuuri’s hair back into place, then catches himself at the last moment and tucks his own hair behind his ear instead.

‘You know it’s true, I’m not good enough—’

Viktor blinks, a slow dangerous motion. ‘Why do you think that?’

‘—and competing against _you_ is too much, it’s stupid to pretend anyone could ever take me seriously next to—’

‘Who told you that?’

Yuuri takes a deep breath and clamps his hands over his nose and mouth, pressing icy fingertips to the bridge of his nose. Viktor’s hand is on his shoulder, and Viktor’s grip isn’t gentle. ‘Don’t act like it isn’t true.’

Viktor’s nails dig into Yuuri’s collarbone before he loosens his grip very deliberately, as though he’s only just remembered himself. When he speaks again, his voice is quiet and deadly. ‘Who told you that?’

* * *

The truth is, no one has ever told Katsuki Yuuri he’s a shit skater. Well. Yuri can’t do anything to stop assholes being assholes on the Internet, unfortunately. But nobody’s ever said it to Yuuri’s face. If someone had tried — if anybody had ever _dared_ — Yuri would’ve heard about it. Which is to say, Yuri would’ve made them regret it for the rest of their lives.

Now eighteen-going-on-nineteen, Yuri remembers himself a few years ago, just as he was back then: shortly after Yuuri’s first real victory at the Four Continents. Grabbing the hapless skater he’d caught dissing Yuuri on the juniors groupchat and screeching, ‘The next time you use your hands to type something like that will be the last time you _have_ hands!’ The memory makes him grin. Yuri’s fondness for physical violence has subsided as he’s gotten older. His temper, however, has not.

He wonders if Yuuri’s noticed yet that Yuri and Viktor go out of their way to personally thrash any skater who looks down on Yuuri. Yuri is extremely talented (and as Lilia’s grilled him into internalising for ten long years, talent should be put to noble uses), and Viktor is… well. Viktor is Viktor. Yuri has been getting along quite well with Viktor recently, thanks to Yuuri. Somehow, he doesn’t think Yuuri has a clue. For someone so tolerant of other people’s selfishness, Yuuri is also pretty fucking self-absorbed. Yuri hates his rinkmates.

The week after placing dead last at the Grand Prix Final, Yuuri calls his parents in his bedroom. For some reason he never Skypes or FaceTimes them, only ever talks to them over the phone — probably doesn’t want his parents and sister to see his face. Fair. Yuuri’s been eating junk food and crying a lot lately.

Yuri bangs the door open as soon as he’s sure Yuuri is done with his phone call. ‘What the hell are you doing with your life?’

‘Knock before you come in,’ says Yuuri, his voice as mild as it usually is because this is _Yuuri_ , but also more-than-slightly wry because he’s grown up around Yakov’s yelling and Viktor’s passive-aggressiveness. Yuri slouches into the room and plops himself down on the bed next to Yuuri.

Having gotten the initial aggression out of the way, he hugs his knees and waits for Yuuri to speak. Yuri knows how to handle Yuuri. He’s had a couple of years to learn, and said things along the way which he prefers not to think about.

Yuuri puts his phone down on the covers between them; then he, too, hugs his knees, his brown eyes grave and tearless. ‘Yuuko said something that made me think.’

Yuri perks up. He likes Yuuko. ‘What did she say?’

‘She said that even now, I’m the sixth best skater in the world.’ Yuuri glances up, searching for affirmation, or perhaps disagreement. ‘Because the GPF only lets in six—’

‘Bullshit!’ Yuri spits, his good mood immediately disappearing. ‘Yuuko should know better. Are you _weak_? Don’t slack off until you’re at the top! Nobody in their right mind would settle for sixth place!’

Yuuri smiles for the first time; it’s barely there. He _has_ gained weight over the past few days, which is kind of impressive when you think about it. Yuri fiercely resists the urge to punch him in the belly and call him a pig. ‘Thank you, Yura.’

Yuri scowls at the floor. He hates having to love people and deal with their stupidity. He hates having a family. It’s not fair.

‘So I guess you’re not going after Vitka?’

Yuuri’s long eyelashes lift slowly as he ponders this. ‘I don’t think he wants to be found.’

‘That selfish piece of shit,’ says Yuri hotly, ‘he never thinks about how anyone else would feel if… what?’ He whips around as Yuuri makes a small, barely noticeable movement beside him. ‘Why are you looking like that?’

Avoiding a direct question, _as usual_ , Yuuri looks up again and treats Yuri to his quick smile. ‘Yeah. He hasn’t updated his Instagram for a long time, has he?’

‘I doubt he’s even turned on his phone. The old man’s been calling him nonstop.’ Yuri stares at Yuuri, nonplussed. ‘Spit it out. You know where he is.’

Yuuri’s gaze drops again. When he speaks his face is calm, but determined. 

‘My parents just told me.’

* * *

‘Hasetsu?’ Mila repeats after Yuri. ‘Well… yeah, that makes sense. Tiny little tourist town. Nobody’d ever think to look for him there, it’s so out of the way.’ At Yuuri’s wounded-fawn blink, she adds: ‘Shhh, Yuuri, this is a free space for making fun of each other’s hometowns.’

‘I was planning to go home for a while after this season,’ Yuuri says, cuddling Mila’s bolster like a child as they sit together in her room. He sounds puzzled — no, not exactly puzzled, but thoughtful in his quiet Yuuri way. ‘Why would Vitya go _there_?’ He meets Yuri’s appalled gaze, blinks in alarm, and quickly clarifies: ‘We’re not avoiding each other. No.’

‘You’d fucking better not be. I have to _live_ with you two.’

‘Not anymore,’ says Yuuri, and he laughs, but it’s not a real laugh. He’s picked up a little of Viktor’s fakeness, which comes and goes at fleeting, awful times over the years. ‘I… at least, I don’t know. I don’t know what he’s planning. He hasn’t responded to my messages. He doesn’t tell me anything.’ He looks at Mila, then at Yuri, and visibly steels himself.

Neither Mila nor Yuri move to make the suggestion. Yuuri does what he wants: he and Viktor are creatures of the same ilk in that way.

Instead of stating the obvious path, though, Yuuri dances around it in typical Yuuri-fashion, skipping ahead of all their thoughts to cock his head and gaze at them both with those devastating brown eyes. ‘Do you think I’m passive?’

‘No,’ Mila responds, blinking in surprise, ‘you’re just relatively quiet and non-dramatic next to a bunch of Russians. So it’s time to _step up_ , Hasetsu boy.’

Yuuri snorts softly. When he looks down, his eyelashes shadow his plump cheeks and he looks, for only a moment, much older than Yuri and Mila. ‘Can you tell Yakov and Lilia that I’ll be in Hasetsu?’

‘Mila and I will manage Yakov. And Yakov can manage the press.’ Yuri wrinkles his nose in distaste. He doesn’t like the smell of Mila’s room, that’s all; nothing to do with what’s going on right now. He doesn’t _care_. Viktor and Yuuri have their own lives! ‘Okay, fine. Specifically, _I’ll_ manage Yakov. Mila can distract him. She’s better at that.’

‘Hang on.’ Mila puts a preemptive hand on Yuri’s arm to hold him back. ‘You’re not going with Yuuri to Japan, are you?’

‘I don’t think so.’ Yuri crosses his arms. ‘Some of us have to stay here and win medals for Russia.’

Yuuri smiles. ‘Thank you for trusting me with him, Yura.’ 

‘Don’t put words in my mouth!’ Yuri yelps. ‘Go away! Get out! I have things to do!’

* * *

Yuuri doesn’t bring much with him; he isn’t expecting to stay long. Maybe Viktor won’t want him there in Yu-topia, invading the place where Viktor fled to be away from the world, rubbing elbows with Viktor, taking up space. Yuuri comes expecting to be turned away. He’s been away from home since he was a little boy — he knows how to travel, he knows how to drift.

It feels strange to be reentering his childhood home. He’s changed and his mother and father haven’t. All the knotted strings of success and failure that make up Yuuri on his best days fall away as he steps over the threshold of the inn’s restaurant. He hasn’t stood here since he was Yura’s height, or shorter.

Yuuri’s mother skids to a stop right in front of him and doesn’t try to hug him, even though she is so excited that she’s bouncing on the balls of her feet. Yuuri tells her, ‘I’m sorry I haven’t been home in five years,’ and that is that.

It’s like he’s never been away at all.

He drags his suitcases up the creaking wooden stairs into the corridor to unpack. Mari stubs out her cigarette, emerges from the open-air laundry area into one of the doorways as he passes, and nods at him in greeting. Yuuri nods back and smiles at her because he hasn’t got a free hand to wave. This is how the Katsuki family shows their love.

He thinks he sees a flash of silver around the corner as he’s hauling his things into his old room, but it could be a trick of the light.

Yuuri has other things on his mind. He sits on the foot of his bed, which has grown too small for his adult frame, and tries to take a minute or two to think about everything that’s happened. He can’t, though — his head is brittle and rustling into overdrive from the long flight, and his skin prickles and the inside of his chest feels tight — so he opens his eyes and gets up before his lungs can start betraying him again. He puts his phone on the bed, near the power socket above his pillow, and plugs it in to charge. He takes out his laptop and sets it on the table. He closes the wardrobe door so he won’t have to see his new roundness in the mirror every time he walks past.He drapes a spare blanket over the trophies on his bookshelf. His walls are bare of posters.

On a sudden impulse, after some moments of standing still and looking around his empty childhood bedroom, he puts in his helix piercings.

Yuuri goes down to find his father and Viktor seated at the kitchen table, with Viktor rinsing vegetables in a basin of water and then handing them to Toshiya for cutting. Viktor’s shorn off most of his hair: the new cut makes him look older, yet somehow delicate. It emphasises his lovely strong nose. He’s wearing one of Mari’s old summer dresses, loose and comfortable around the hips — no, an apron? — no, he is definitely wearing Mari’s dress. The wave of love and nostalgia that hits Yuuri at this moment, at the sight of two such separate and treasured things unexpectedly combined, is so strong that Yuuri has to turn away. He heads towards the door for a shower and a soak in the hot springs. 

But before Yuuri leaves, the weight of his gaze catches Viktor’s attention. Viktor looks up. His fingers don’t stop moving in the basin; his eyes look almost grey in the fading light. He smiles.

On his way out, Yuuri sniffs the air, then turns to Hiroko as she passes him with an overloaded basket of clean clothes in her arms. ‘Did you get a dog?’

‘No,’ Hiroko answers. She nods in the direction of the kitchen. ‘He did.’

* * *

Yuuri doesn’t see much of Viktor in his first few days back in Hasetsu. Something about the clear salt air, perhaps, or the low rumble of the ocean outside his window at night, or simply his own exhaustion, keeps Yuuri from checking his phone as often as usual. He’s not sure how Viktor has managed to keep the press (and fans) from figuring out that Viktor’s in Hasetsu and descending like a swarm of locusts upon Yu-topia. Maybe it’s the choice to chop off Viktor’s distinctive hair, which is a wise and very Viktor move. Maybe it’s Yakov’s efforts to contain the fallout back in Russia. The last time Yuuri talks on the phone with Yakov that week, he finishes by saying, ‘Sorry, Yakov,’ and quietly ends the call.

Lilia, of course, understands.

Yuuri finds Viktor, at last, by the ocean. He isn’t out looking for Viktor on purpose; it’s not like Yuuri to wedge himself into other people’s space. He’s on the beach by himself, following the curve of seawater along the coast because he can feel its music in his bones, when he comes across Viktor seated on a big piece of black driftwood, his back to the dark bank of trees. Yuuri walks towards him slowly. Viktor has a book in his hands, the same novel that’s been dozing on his nightstand for almost a year, and there’s a young poodle — a puppy, more or less — lying at his feet.

Yuuri pauses, uncertain of his welcome. Viktor looks so happy by himself. But then the puppy pricks up its ears and comes bounding towards Yuuri down the beach, and Viktor glances up sharply, and that’s the end of any attempt at subtlety.

The puppy’s not nearly big enough to knock Yuuri over, but it tries its best. Yuuri stumbles towards Viktor, laughing, and Viktor pats the sand beside him with a small curious smile.

‘I got a dog.’ Viktor’s hands twitch on the covers of his book — the nails are trimmed short and clean, better-kept than Yuuri’s seen them in a while. ‘Isn’t she cute?’

‘She’s beautiful.’ Yuuri sits down on the sand next to Viktor and gathers Viktor’s puppy (a furry, flailing ball of limbs) into his lap. ‘What’s her name?’

‘Makkachin.’ Viktor extends a hand towards her as he says her name. She bumbles over to him and he kisses his puppy, and then his puppy nuzzles her head against Viktor’s arm and goes back to kissing Yuuri.

Yuuri cups his hand so that he can cradle Makkachin’s sweet little nose in his palm. ‘Chris said to tell you he still has your scarf from that time in Marseilles.’

‘Yes,’ Viktor says. ‘Tell him he can keep it.’

Viktor’s lips are chapped. He looks a little raw, even a little unpolished, without his usual curled lashes and heavy concealer. The wind sifts through his short hair and sea salt clings to his nose. He turns his head to gaze at Yuuri, his eyes placid. 

‘So peaceful. Why did you ever leave?’

Yuuri doesn’t reply. Viktor’s face is upturned to the grey sky, watching black-tailed gulls circle and glide between the clouds. He doesn’t have to tell Yuuri that the gulls remind him of St. Petersburg — Yuuri already knows.

‘She likes you,’ Viktor says. Yuuri is tired, and content to let Viktor begin most of the talking while they figure out where they stand with each other.

‘Hmm?’

‘Makka.’

‘Yeah.’ Yuuri smiles down at Makkachin, letting his fingers trail through the fine white sand between them. ‘I like your hair.’

‘Really?’ Viktor lifts his chin and blows a stray strand of hair out of his eyes, as unselfconscious about his beauty as he’s always been.

‘It looks good.’

‘And people here don’t ask to touch it.’ His movements dulled by the velvet calm all around them (but still sharp enough for Yuuri to recognise his change in mood), Viktor’s head swings round sothat he can look at Yuuri full-on. ‘Aren’t you going to ask why I left?’

‘I know why.’

Viktor’s gaze drops to the pages in front of him. He fingers the book’s paperback cover, draws a thumb along its worn and fragile edge. ‘Thanks.’

‘Why Japan, though? Why Hasetsu?’

‘It was far away.’

‘From me?’

Viktor turns again and sends Yuuri a swift unreadable glance.

‘Okay,’ Yuuri responds, keeping himself still. He doesn’t know how to interpret that. ‘But my parents know you.’

‘Yes.’ Viktor sucks on his bottom lip. Sometimes these tiny, childish tics — tucking an invisible strand of hair behind his ear, rubbing a lollipop against his own lips before he reaches over and slips it into Yuuri’s mouth — emerge at the most unexpected times and make Yuuri’s heart ache. ‘You have your mother’s face.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Most people don’t know me,’ Viktor says, sounding curious. He tilts his beautiful head like a bird. ‘But you’re famous here, you’re everyone’s hero. So I tell them I’m your friend. Well. Your friend who’s a figure skater.’ He meets Yuuri’s incredulous look with that familiar owl-slow blink. ‘Not your parents, just… other people. The ones I meet outside Yu-topia.’

‘Vitya,’ Yuuri tells him, laughing, ‘there’s no way somebody could recognise my face but then not know who _you_ are.’

‘Oh, I don’t think many people follow figure skating here except Minako.’ Viktor doesn’t sound displeased about that. ‘And some _do_ recognise me, for sure. It’s just that they tend to think I’m a model.’

‘I wonder why.’

Viktor’s short laugh is sudden and wonderful. He looks at Yuuri sideways, as he’s always liked to do, through his eyelashes. Yuuri has never missed and cherished anyone so much as in this moment. 

Viktor’s voice is low and careful when he speaks again. 

‘Yuuri, why are you here? There’s still time to win Japanese Nationals.’

Yuuri stares at him. ‘I’m not going to win Nationals this year.’

‘Why not?’ Viktor’s eyebrows rise. ‘More impossible things have been done.’

‘By you.’ Yuuri says this with love: he can’t _not_ love Viktor, terrible and marvellous and earth-shattering as he is. ‘And I’m not you, Vitya.’

Viktor’s book slams shut. ‘ _Really?_ That’s what this is about?’ He leans around the edge of the driftwood log to get a better view of Yuuri’s expression. ‘Who told you you’re not talented? _Who told you?_ ’

Yuuri sinks his fingers into Makkachin’s fur, soothing her. ‘Vitya—’

‘You’re not being fair to me either!’ Viktor cries. ‘I work hard! You’ve trained with me for years! Do you think I’m just a prodigy, that everything comes _easy_? I didn’t win gold at the GPF till I waspast twenty, I’m not some kind of two-time Olympic champion! I’m twenty-three! I haven’t _started_!’

He stops himself, catching his breath. Yuuri watches Viktor’s face as he strokes Makkachin absent-mindedly. After a few seconds, Viktor holds out his hand without looking and Makkachin goes to him and bumps her nose against his fingers.

‘Did it feel good to say that?’

Viktor glances at Yuuri, startled. ‘Yes.’

Yuuri smiles. ‘I’m glad.’ He bends down and taps Makkachin’s head gently. ‘I can’t tell whether you want to be alone. Should I go?’

Viktor’s head comes up in alarm. ‘Don’t, please. Stay.’ 

Viktor sinks his teeth into his lower lip again, the elegant lines of his face aged and harshened by his new haircut. When he turns again to Yuuri, he speaks with an abrupt and implacable frankness.

‘I’m burned out, Yuuri. I want a break from skating. Maybe a year. Or forever.’

‘Vitya, you just said you’ve barely started.’

‘I’m burned out.’

Yuuri nods in agreement, even as it pains him to do so. ‘Okay.’

Viktor’s eyebrows draw together, although only for a half-instant; again he tilts his head, again he studies Yuuri’s face across the distance between them. He looks as though he thinks Yuuri’s said something wrong. ‘You know, Yuuri, I don’t know what you want from me?’

‘I want you to be happy,’ Yuuri protests. He doesn’t hesitate. His fists clench in Makkachin’s fur. ‘With or without me! You should be able to be happy when you’re… both when you’re alone, and when you’re with other people. I just want you to feel well.’

Viktor blinks rapidly and doesn’t respond to that and again Yuuri feels them slanting alongside each other, not quite comprehending one another even through their love. They sit together in companionable silence as Yuuri, who’s always been the better one at identifying his own feelings, works to sort out the thoughts inside his head. Mostly he is upset because Viktor hasn’t yet restored permission for Yuuri to call him Vitenka. Maybe Yuuri’s lost his chance forever.

He looks up to find Viktor watching him quietly, as though Yuuri is some lovely and ever-changing piece of the sky. Of course Viktor loves Hasetsu, Yuuri thinks — that city-bred Moscow boy.

‘What are you thinking?’ Viktor asks.

‘I was just—’ Yuuri bites his lip, smiles. ‘You know, maybe we’re both a bit young to be having a midlife crisis?’

‘And maybe I’m a bit young to be the best athlete in my field, and yet here we are.’

Yuuri bursts out laughing. He can’t help himself. ‘I love you so much.’

Viktor’s mouth drops open. They look at each other across Makkachin’s small contented form.

‘I… wow.’ Viktor stares at the ocean. He looks down at his book, and opens it again. ‘Is it something in the water here?’

Yuuri pulls his knees up to his chest and hugs them tightly. He’s got to have some kind of outlet for the warmth rising in his chest. He rests his head on his arm, gazing sidelong at Viktor’s battered, well-loved paperback novel with its fading Cyrillic print. ‘What are you reading?’

‘ _Idiót_.’

‘Sorry.’

‘No, no.’ Viktor laughs. ‘That’s the title. “The Idiot.” By Dostoyevsky.’

‘Oh.’ Yuuri wraps his arms more closely around the tops of his knees, feeling loved and comfortable. ‘Is it nice?’

Viktor’s eyes soften with his smile. He reaches out to tuck a strand of hair behind Yuuri’s ear. ‘Not bad.’

* * *

After they come back from the beach, Viktor heads straight to dinner. Yuuri lingers in the hallway, looking at the small pile of cardboard boxes sealed with packing tape; he draws his fingertip along one of the flaps, smears a clean line through the film of dust.

Mari pads down the corridor, scowling at Viktor’s boxes. She stops for a second to prod Yuuri in the shoulder. ‘Your boy’s never had to pick things up after himself, has he?’

Yuuri grins. ‘He tries.’

‘I bet.’ She thumps his shoulder lightly and then stoops to examine the label on one of the boxes. ‘Who’s V.A.N.?’

‘Him.’ Yuuri rubs his nose, trying to adjust to all these different levels of familiarity. ‘I mean, that’s him. Viktor Aleksandrovich Nikiforov.’

‘His father’s name is Alexander?’

‘One of his mothers is called Alexandra. I don’t really understand all the rules to do with Russian names. Only some of them.’ Yuuri takes off his shoes and lines them up neatly outside the doorway. ‘I’m going in to dinner.’

* * *

‘My _maman_ ,’ Viktor begins. He swirls a fingertip in the dampness on the tabletop from his bowl’s sweat-drops soaking the wood. ‘I used to braid her hair when I was a child. I was very small. Then _I_ had long hair. So…’ He settles his intent, patient gaze on Yuuri, tapping his finger on the muddied dinner table where his sake cup rests in its ring-shaped stain. Viktor can’t hold his sake. Yuuri is not surprised. Viktor smells of rice, of fresh and very good food, and of the green-tea-scented shampoo still fragrant in his wet hair. ‘Then I moved to St. Petersburg to train. And over there it was only me.’

‘Was your hair long when you were a child?’

‘No,’ Viktor answers, thinking it over. Sweet and bubbling with liquor, he rests his cheek on Yuuri’s shoulder. He hasn’t said anything about Yuuri’s weight gain, barring a single, silent eyebrow raise when Hiroko set the bowl of katsudon down in front of Yuuri. ‘I started growing it out when I was… about eight? I think?’

Yuuri wonders what Viktor considers “very small” if he didn’t think of himself as a child when he was eight.

‘He should burn that tie,’ Viktor whispers. His head lolls on Yuuri’s shoulder. He’s eyeing one of the inn’s other customers in the restaurant.

‘Yeah, probably.’ Yuuri pushes his last remaining grains of rice into a tiny pile with his chopsticks. He tries to remember what he was like when he was eight years old. ‘I’ve picked up your fashion sense, living with you.’

‘ _A_ fashion sense, my Yuuri. You have gained _a_ fashion sense.’

Yuuri’s heart swoops and sails. He lifts his hand and softly touches Viktor’s nose. ‘Can I call you Vitenka?’

‘Mm-hmm.’ Viktor tilts his face up, as though for a kiss. He can’t seem to take his eyes off Yuuri. ‘Let’s sleep together.’

‘No,’ Yuuri says. Quietly he taps the table leg to calm himself, knowing that this one word is the equivalent of slamming a door in Viktor’s face. ‘Vitenka, you’re not truly alone. We’re _all here_ for you. Maybe turn on your phone and answer Yura and Yakov’s messages before you talk to me about sleeping together.’

Viktor says nothing, and sits up without a word to poke at his empty bowl. When he finally raises his eyes, he seems much more sober than before. ‘Have you been checking Instagram? Twitter?’

‘No.’

‘Good.’

Yuuri presses his lips together. ‘What are your fans saying?’

‘Oh, they’re angry.’ Viktor smiles at Yuuri, the precise, false smile which Yuuri personally hates. ‘I don’t care. I have my own life.’

‘Sorry.’ Yuuri exhales as quietly as possible, although he still looks up to find Viktor watching him in concern. ‘Sorry for coming here. I hope I didn’t draw unwanted attention to you.’

‘What? This is your _home_ ,’ says Viktor, shocked. ‘It’s not your fault! People aren’t angry at _you_. Nobody thinks you’re weak.’

‘I know! I know.’ Yuuri pats the table leg again with one hand (Viktor tolerates Yuuri’s nervous tics without blinking). ‘I can’t help it sometimes. You know?’

‘I know.’

‘Because I’m just—’ He smiles at Viktor, pained. ‘—the way I am—’

‘Yuuri,’ Viktor sighs. He takes a long swallow of his sake.

‘—and our first meeting was so awful—’

Viktor spits out his sake.

‘Are you okay?’

‘Yes. Yes, I’m okay.’ Viktor studies the bottom of his cup. He dips his head so that Yuuri can’t see the expression on his face.

* * *

_—11, 12—_

‘Wow,’ Viktor says.

The new boy at the St. Petersburg rink moves with fluid grace. He slips and flubs his one jump (apparently Viktor’s come in too late into the run-through to see them all), and yet… and yet he is so lovely, moving in circles on the freshly smoothed ice. He turns and catches sight of Viktor and sudden, fresh alarm spreads over his face. He’s pudgy and dimpled in the cheeks, and he has a soft double chin and eyes like a fawn’s, and he is the single most beautiful boy Viktor has ever seen.

He is also a very ugly crier.

Viktor worries briefly about catching Katsuki Yuuri with his pants down before deciding that Yuuri would’ve just said he was using the toilet if he was actually, you know, on the toilet. So he drags the chair over to Yuuri’s cubicle-for-crying, and stands on the chair, and stretches up on tiptoe to peer down over the door at Yuuri.

‘Hi,’ he says, since his mama and _maman_ have always told Viktor he ought to be polite by introducing himself to new people. ‘I’m Viktor Nikiforov.’

Yuuri squints at Viktor like he thinks Viktor is stupid (Viktor’s not stupid). ‘I know.’

‘Yakov is looking for you.’

Yuuri wipes his nose, smearing mucus over the bottom half of his face. ‘Okay.’

Viktor stands on one leg and wonders what he should do. Yuuri isn’t exactly being very helpful. ‘Do I go tell Yakov that you’re still crying?’

‘No!’ Yuuri yelps. ‘I’m not… I’m not crying! I’ll come out!’

‘Okay,’ says Viktor, lowering himself from tiptoe to the balls of his feet. He is not sure why Yuuri is lying to him, and lying so poorly at that. Does Yuuri think that Viktor can’t see the evidence of tears for himself? Then the thought occurs to Viktor that he needs to move the chair away from the door so that Yuuri can come out, and so he does.

After the end of practice, Yakov makes them meet formally face-to-face and hauls Viktor over to stand in front of him, thrusting Viktor forward like a jewel. ‘Yuuri, this is Vitya.’ (Now both Yuuri and Viktor look at Yakov like he is stupid.) ‘He is the only one here who is around your age. Yurochka is too young and Mila is too playful to be a good influence on you.’ Yakov stabs a gnarled forefinger in Yuuri’s direction, as Yakov can never pass up the opportunity to be dramatic. ‘Become friends, for you may be known as rivals someday!’

Yuuri visibly cringes. Viktor, meanwhile, is looking at Yuuri’s soft dark brown eyes and thinking that maybe they will be married someday.

Yuuri swallows hard and then bobs his head, as though he was about to bow and thought better of it at the last moment. ‘Please take care of me!’ he blurts. Quickly his eyes dart away from Viktor’s face, and he looks down at his feet and shuffles his weight unattractively from one foot to another. ‘I want to become as good at skating as you!’

Viktor says blankly: ‘I don’t care.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to spookyfoot and n-x-northwest for reading (and helpfully summarising!) various works of russian literature so i didn't have to


	9. Part 3: 22, 23 (Hasetsu, cont.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this final chapter starts and ends with Viktor having an internal gay crisis over Yuuri. TW for minor body image issues, discussions of depression and anxiety

 

Viktor leans against the wooden doorframe and watches Yuuri push his mop across the floorboards. Hair clinging to his forehead, shirt-sleeves rolled up to the elbows, Yuuri manages to make the most mundane of chores look like a dance. From the doorway Viktor has a good view of Yuuri’s inky eyelashes and the clear glitter of sweat on his cheekbones, and he only gets a second’s headstart to arrange his face before Yuuri notices him there and looks up with a smile.

‘Want to help?’

‘Yes,’ says Viktor, momentarily struck dumb by the knowledge that he can never refuse Yuuri anything, ‘yeah, sure.’

* * *

Sometimes Viktor’s mind descends into slow thick puddles of nothing, and at other times it grinds on and on, implacable clockwork chewing into the empty air between its gears, even when there is nothing to think _about_. Both states of mind are exhausting. Here is a list of reasons for Viktor’s choice of Hasetsu, Japan:

  * It is a sleepy seaside town. No one expects him to be there.
  * He does not know the language. No one will speak to him.
  * He has gained the impression somewhere that Japanese people don’t tend to initiate physical contact. No one will touch him.
  * It is Yuuri’s hometown. Hasetsu produced Yuuri, so it must be a nice place.
  * There is a skating rink very near Yu-topia (a point which Viktor deliberately doesn’t think about).
  * He can try new types of food.



He has had notifications on his phone turned off for a very long time. He turns his phone back on, at least, after the conversation with Yuuri in Yu-topia’s restaurant, and tries to make himself read the waiting messages before deleting them all.

Viktor has been feeling very odd lately.

* * *

Minako makes him come to her ballet studio after Lilia’s name gets brought up in conversation. She’s a very different sort of teacher from Lilia, one who stands at a distance with her arms folded and an expression of impenetrable neutrality on her face. Because of this Viktor does not mind Minako’s attention resting on him. He contorts himself for as long as he can before turning to Minako and spitting out the truth.

‘I can’t show you what I have. I’m not Yuuri.’ Viktor frowns, grateful for Minako’s flawless English and her mastery of technical terms whose Japanese names he’ll never know. Still, the lack of a language barrier between them can’t smoothe over Viktor’s fundamental poverty of words. ‘I’m not a dancer.’

‘You’re an idiot,’ says Minako, somehow managing to sound much blander and less severe than Lilia would’ve sounded if she’d said the same words. She crosses her arms more firmly over her chest. ‘I’ve seen you skate. You are a dancer. How could you not be?’

Viktor leans against the barre, giving up any pretense at grace. He does attract attention here in Hasetsu — he’s a foreigner, and it can’t be helped — but with his easily recognisable long hair (finally) cut off, Viktor feels bare and remade, raw and free. He feels as though he must be as difficult to identify on the outside as he is on the inside. His posture says _trained_ , his face says _outsider_ , and in Minako’s studio his body says he is an imposter. It doesn’t feel right to place his feet in the same spots where Yuuri’s feet have been.

‘I’m not Yuuri,’ he repeats helplessly.

Minako lifts her chin, and all at once Viktor sees where Yuuri gets his small gestures of the head from — those impossibly elegant, owlish movements. ‘Yuuri,’ she replies without hesitating, ‘is special.’

Now Viktor feels at last that they understand one another. He slips into a resting position, his toes curling on Minako’s polished floor before he finds his footing. Yakov and Lilia don’t generally have the habit of sharing their most personal opinions of their skaters’ abilities with their _other_ skaters.It is hugely satisfying to find an older, retired mentor who shares his evaluation of Yuuri’s natural talents, Yuuri’s fluidity of motion like music given form. ‘Isn’t he?’ Viktor echoes. His body holds itself perfectly still. His feet shift, tense, point.

Viktor is much better now that he’s had over a week’s break from obsessively reworking pieces of choreography. With the same infantile conviction that still makes him mildly superstitious at certain hours of the night, he had been sure that he’d lose his skill if he stopped for even a day. He is beginning to see how close he’s come to an almost total collapse.

He studies Minako’s fey, ageless face, wondering how to make his thoughts comprehensible to her. Viktor is _not Yuuri_ — Viktor can shift into performing between one blink of an eye and the next, whereas Yuuri moves like he’s never stopped dancing at all. Yuuri has everything for a heart, and Viktor has only his tired and mechanical mind. He cannot move like Yuuri. He cannot _feel_ like Yuuri. He has become a shell.

Minako kicks him out of her studio and back into the endless day. Viktor’s very happy with this new routine of his day-to-day life; in Russia he spent so much of his time on the ice that the streets of St. Petersburg became foreign to him. Stepping out of the rink’s artificial chill, he used to feel like a tourist emerging into a strange city. Nowadays, dressed in Mari’s hand-me-downs (frayed sandals and threadbare shirts, pastel greens and egg-yolk yellows faded to cream), he takes himself on aimless, day-long adventures around Hasetsu. Viktor watches the world keenly, and he knows he is very good at deciphering other people. He’s just forgotten how to interact with them, that’s all.

Here is a list of things Viktor has done so far in Hasetsu:

  * He _has_ learned some Japanese, just enough that he can’t remain a stranger to the town. Fishmongers, and vegetable sellers, and the owner of his favourite ramen stall which stays open from evening until dawn, seem very fond of Viktor. Elderly Japanese people are not really the target audience of Viktor’s media persona, and he hasn’t been striving to be charming, so the observation unnerves and pleases him.
  * He did not think he’d like animals, seeing as Viktor hasn’t felt much interest in anyone or anything of late. But the woman in charge of the shelter was so kind that he did not mind her calling him in from the street and trying to make conversation with him (another side-effect of Viktor’s obviously foreign appearance). The language barrier was a good excuse for Viktor’s slowness of tongue as he tried to remember how to speak to people outside the figure skating world. At any rate, Viktor took one look at Makkachin in her puppy enclosure and changed his mind.
  * He shadows Yuuri’s lovely mother around the inn and follows her instructions as best as he can, through her hesitant English and his own faltering, accented Japanese. Mari has a much better command of English than her mother but chooses not to act as interpreter because she finds the sight amusing, a view which Viktor respects.
  * He’s back to his morning runs; he does not feel all that tired anymore and he likes to look after his body. Toshiya and Viktor, as the only members of Yuuri’s family who are naturally early risers, have developed quite a strong bond as a result.
  * He has not gone skating. He has not unpacked his skating gear.



* * *

‘This is getting out of hand,’ is the first thing Yura says when Yuuri FaceTimes him. ‘Please, please can you tell Vitka that Leonardo DiCaprio has gotten fat? And old? And _bald_? And that he should stop styling himself after the nineties teen icons of his childhood?’

Yuuri folds another T-shirt and adds it to the growing pile of clean laundry on the kitchen counter. ‘I think the haircut looks nice on Vitya.’

‘You would,’ Yura snorts. He’s hunched over the end of his bed with one foot up on the nearby swivel chair, apparently cutting his toenails. ‘Listen, if I’d known you’d be staying in Hasetsu this long I’d have come chasing Vitka with you. What are you even doing with your time over there?’

He means to ask whether Yuuri’s been training, maintaining his form — acting like a professional athlete, more or less. ‘Doing chores,’ Yuuri answers, tugging the ironing board a little more to the left so that he can adjust his phone’s angle. ‘Helping out around the inn.’

Yura’s face, even through the shaky Internet connection, shows exactly what he thinks of such occupations. ‘And Vitka?’

‘Don’t know. He has other things on his mind.’

‘He’s impossible,’ Yura complains. ‘Nobody ever knows what he’s doing. You—’

‘I _have_ been skating.’ Yuuri arranges the folded clothes into a stack and places them neatly in a fresh basket. After a moment’s thought, he props his phone up on the topmost layer so that he can carry on talking to Yura while he makes his rounds of Yu-topia, returning batches of clothes to their respective wardrobes. ‘A little.’

‘Since when has _a little_ been enough for you? The Yuuri I know doesn’t do things by halves.’

Yuuri doesn’t know how to explain to Yura the type of skating he does on sleepless nights, on the lonely afternoons when he can’t bear to face even Minako; it’s not training, it’s therapy. His feet carry him without faltering even at his excessive body weight, even at this lowest, humiliating point of his career. On skates he’s invincible. His feet can bear him up no matter what physical state he’s in. They are the one reliable part of Yuuri. He only stumbles when people are looking at him.

Yuuri is not able to put these feelings into words for Yura, so he says instead (distracted by the task of matching shirt size to bedroom): ‘I don’t think I’m cut out for competing, Yura.’

From his place of honour in the centre of Yuuri’s laundry basket, Yura’s mouth drops open. ‘You love competing.’ Blurry on the phone screen, he drags the dustbin over to the foot of his bed and begins sweeping nail clippings into the trash. ‘On a scale of one to ten with ten being the most competitive, by which I mean me, you’re a _nine_.’ He dusts his hands off aggressively to underscore the point. ‘Go on, argue with me! We both know it’s true.’

Rather than challenge him on that point, Yuuri asks, ‘What about Vitya?’

Yura scrubs his nose with the back of his hand. ‘Eight-point-five? On normal days? Like, a two, when he’s depressed?’ He flops back onto the bed and takes his phone with him, so Yuuri’s treated to a close-up of Yura’s messy bangs and the pimple on his forehead before the camera rights itself. ‘Katsuki Yuuri. What a liar you are. Your eyebrows are your only redeeming feature.’

Yuuri smiles, unoffended. ‘I’ll take it.’

‘You’re such a loser!’ Yura cries, his patience at last wearing thin. ‘One big failure at the Grand Prix Final, which isn’t even that important—’

‘Yura!’

‘Please. We could be at the Olympics.’ In Viktor’s absence, Yura seems to feel the need to inflate his own natural arrogance so as to fill the vacuum left behind in Russia. In _Yuuri’s_ absence, he grabs the nearest available pillow and smacks it against the side of the bed to vent his frustration. ‘I can’t believe the shit you put me through sometimes! One big failure and you give up on yourself, you give up on all of us and run back to Japan with your tail between your legs! Keep thinking of yourself as a washed-up has-been and that’s exactly what you’re going to be. Are you _listening to me_?’

‘Yes, Yura,’ says Yuuri automatically.

‘Don’t make me come down there myself! You and Vitka deserve each other, you selfish shits, do you… do you think I _enjoy_ being Yakov’s last hope while you’re both gone? I want to win gold because I’ve beaten you both, not because you’re away on your little vacation! Don’t you dare retire this early! _Are you_ going to retire?’

‘To be honest—’ Yuuri adjusts his grip on the laundry basket as he backs into another empty guest room. ‘—I do kind of want to retire before Yuzuru and Nathan start competing in seniors.’

Yura stares at him hard. ‘Okay, well, _valid_ , but no.’

Yuuri takes a moment to smother his grin. It’s rare that he manages to make Yura pause for breath. ‘I love you, Yura.’

‘I love you too!’ Yura yells. ‘You fucking idiot! Come back to Russia and bring Vitka with you!’

* * *

Yuuri, his skin dampened by the sunlight sifting through the shutters, nudges Makkachin gently with his toe to get her to move out of his way. He pokes his head through the doorway and takes in Viktor’s bedroom, his dark eyes curious behind his glasses. ‘Why do you need such a big bed?’

‘For Makka,’ Viktor replies, nonplussed. ‘Obviously.’

Yuuri doesn’t point out that Makkachin is currently very small. He takes a cautious step forward, his fingers on the doorframe, and then steps fully into the room at Viktor’s nod. Standing with his back to the corridor, he has all the warmth of the sunset pooling around his feet. Viktor takes a moment to square this version of Yuuri with the one who sat coolly destroying his video game partners until two o’clock last night, snapping the occasional insult into his headphones, with Viktor’s head pillowed on his lap and a Japanese beginner’s textbook abandoned on the futon beside them.

‘I thought maybe I could help you unpack.’ Yuuri’s voice lilts upwards on the last syllable like a grace-note. At Viktor’s questioning look, he elaborates, ‘Your boxes of… um, skating costumes, right?’

‘Oh.’ Viktor puts his book down on the bedcovers, marking the page with his thumb. ‘I didn’t bring many.’

‘They’re taking up space in the hallway, Mari says.’

‘Sorry.’

‘I understand if maybe you don’t want to touch them.’ With an awkward, birdlike poise, Yuuri uses the toes of one foot to scratch the other leg’s calf. ‘I don’t like looking at mine either.’

‘Yuuri,’ Viktor says softly.

Yuuri rests his arm on the doorframe and seems to brace himself. Viktor is regularly awed by Yuuri’s ability to make himself appear tall or soft, small, vulnerable, seemingly at will; it’s all in the way he moves. ‘Just say whatever it is you’ve been wanting to say.’

‘Do you plan to get back in shape?’ Viktor asks. Tactful silence has never come naturally to him, and now the blunt words roll off his tongue. ‘You’ve gained weight.’

‘You’ve _lost_ weight.’

‘I haven’t been hungry.’ Viktor wonders if he is allowed to kiss Yuuri here, in the family home. He doesn’t believe so. But he kisses Makkachin all the time and Makkachin kisses Yuuri, so perhaps Makkachin is a good messenger for Viktor’s feelings. ‘Have you?’

‘No. But I overeat anyway.’ Yuuri turns on his heel, languid, graceful, leaving Makkachin to her duty of guarding Viktor’s bedroom from intruders. Viktor shifts underneath the covers in sudden and inexplicable panic. He can’t convince Yuuri to stay. He meant them to share this bedroom. At some point in the haze of Viktor’s bad mood when he first arrived at Yu-topia, that was the rationale for picking this particular guest room. Viktor doesn’t need that much space by himself. Short of coaxing Yuuri closer with shy gestures and scraps, like a boy feeding sparrows (which feels insulting to Yuuri), he has no idea how to make Yuuri come _in_ and make himself welcome and nest in Viktor’s space.

‘I’m bored, Vitya.’ Over his shoulder, Yuuri sends Viktor a delicate sidelong glance. ‘I’m heading to the rink.’

Viktor feels cold. He mirrors Yuuri’s head-tilt, wondering why Yuuri seems to think he needs to ask Viktor’s permission. ‘Have fun.’ 

Only after Yuuri’s gone does Viktor realise that it was an invitation to join Yuuri, not a rejection. 

So he takes Makkachin on a long walk. His soles burn; something in his stomach feels unmoored, uneasy. He sits watching the ocean with Makkachin at his side until sunset dips into evening, and the tides turn from rosy pink to gold to grey beneath Hasetsu’s sodden clouds. Then Viktor gets to his feet. His legs prickle with pins and needles. From the way Makkachin wags her tail at him, he can tell that she knows they’re going to go see Yuuri.

Viktor doesn’t go into Hasetsu Ice Castle, not yet. But he waits outside with Makkachin in his arms and lets the evening sweat dampen the back of his collar. Yuuri emerges from the rink at slightly past six o’clock; they walk home together, the three of them, and go quietly in to dinner.

* * *

Summer heat soaks the floorboards of Yu-topia. Yuuri returns from Minako’s studio to find Mari laughing into her sleeve behind the kitchen cabinets, her bandana gritty with dust and sweat. While he hangs up Makkachin’s leash and sends her scampering deeper into the house to find Viktor, Mari peeks at him over the top of a cupboard door.

‘Help me find the aloe vera gel for your boy. He’s gone and roasted himself.’ Rising from her crouch, Mari crab-shuffles her way over to a second cupboard and begins rifling through its contents in turn. ‘Go take a look at him, he’s as red as a lobster.’

Yuuri turns his ear to the inner corridors of the house and waits. Within a few seconds the quicklittle patter of Makkachin’s paws returns, and her head appears around the corner of the kitchen before she makes a lunge at him. Yuuri catches her neatly in his arms and, as he cradles her against his chest, ventures to say, ‘I don’t think Viktor will appreciate you calling him my boy now that he understands Japanese better.’

Mari snorts. ‘Fine. Get your Viktor some aloe vera. Where the hell _is_ it? I’ve been looking all over.’

Yuuri finds the aloe vera gel in under a minute. Cupping the tube in his hands, he follows Makkachin to one of the inn’s small spare rooms, where Viktor is sprawled on the floor with the fan turned on full blast. The room is otherwise empty but for a few old containers, an unused bucket and mop sitting beside the one plastic chair, and the shelves where Hiroko keeps stray trinkets and free gifts destined for Yu-topia’s reception counter. Behind the tin can of pencils Yuuri finds a couple of candy jars, and he fishes out a lollipop as he studies Viktor.

‘You managed to put sunscreen on every part of your body except your face?’

‘I don’t think about my _face_ ,’ Viktor protests from the floor, his voice muffled in Makkachin’s fur as she snuggles up to his chin. ‘Can you do it for me?’

Yuuri looks around the room as he absent-mindedly unwraps the lollipop, sliding it into his mouth to suck on and moisten, and Viktor gets up with a sigh (reluctantly dislodging Makkachin). Viktor drags the chair to the centre of the room without being asked, and settles himself down to wait. Makkachin trots in a series of ever-shrinking circles around the chair before deciding on a spot directly underneath it. Their two pairs of eyes, blue-green and brown, rest on Yuuri as he walks over to Viktor’s side.

Viktor is wearing sweatpants. Yuuri is quite sure he doesn’t own a pair of shorts. He must be wilting in this humidity. Yuuri climbs into his lap, pulling the lollipop out of his own mouth so that Viktor can gently relieve him of it. They’re allowed to act like children around each other.

‘You used to like chocolate more.’

Viktor touches the sticky candy to his lips for an instant before he wedges the lollipop snugly into his cheek. ‘Harder to share.’

Yuuri squints at Viktor. Chocolate bars can be bitten in half; other things — ‘Sometimes I don’t understand your logic.’

‘You have a mouth thing. I indulge it.’ Viktor wraps his arms securely around Yuuri’s waist. ‘Please?’

With Yuuri’s defenses down and Viktor’s blank, collected, camera-ready outer shell equally absent, they can touch and talk in genuine ways. Yuuri dabs the gel on Viktor’s sunburned nose, acutely aware of his own foot brushing the floorboards and the heat of Viktor’s skin under his fingertips. The sound of his own heartbeat slows to a distant thrum. Beneath them, Makkachin huffs contentedly.

‘Poor nose,’ Yuuri mutters, unaware that he’s spoken until Viktor raises his eyes.

‘It’s big.’ Satisfied that Yuuri’s still there, Viktor lowers his long eyelashes once more. ‘Shades my face.’

‘I like your nose.’ Yuuri has strong feelings about this issue.

Viktor’s only response is a low hum, lost in the muggy sweat of the afternoon sunlight. His cheeks burn with leftover fever and a map of new freckles has spread across the bridge of his nose. There’s really no excuse for Yuuri to be this close to him. Yuuri doesn’t _have_ to sit on Viktor’s lap to apply after-sun remedies. He doesn’t have to do that for Viktor at all. Viktor’s a twenty-three-year-old adult and he can take care of himself.

Yuuri just wants to do it, that’s all. Maybe that’s okay.

‘Do you like it?’

‘What?’

‘Nose.’

‘I like all parts of you,’ Viktor responds with deep and glowing sincerity, his hold tightening around Yuuri’s waist. Yuuri snorts.

‘I meant you. _Your_ nose.’

‘Oh,’ mumbles Viktor, tolerating Yuuri’s digressions with his usual unblinking patience. He almost goes cross-eyed trying to look at his own nose, and then his gaze shifts and re-focuses on Yuuri. ‘I don’t think about it much.’

Skating in its most valuable form, for Yuuri, isn’t just a method of focusing his own mind as he refines the same footwork over and over and over again. It’s therapeutic. It makes him feel quiet. Here in the sweltering inn with damp heat rising off the floorboards, Yuuri feels quiet.

‘Remember that time you helped me take my makeup off?’

Viktor draws the lollipop from his mouth with an audible smack. They are both dragging out these moments of shared contact as long as possible — Yuuri’s working very slowly. ‘Which time?’

Yuuri can recall exactly which competition he’s talking about, and which year, but decides not to mention it. Viktor took bronze at the event when he was aiming for gold, and Yuuri thinks Viktor won’t particularly want to be reminded of that. ‘Can’t remember. But you sat in my lap, like this. The hotel was, um, cosy, and the walls were all yellow?’

Viktor presses his lips together to show he remembers. ‘You had blue eyeliner,’ he says at last. His hand comes to settle in the small of Yuuri’s back. ‘There was mesh at the back of your costume.’

Yuuri smiles. ‘Yeah.’

‘It was a pain to take off.’

‘The eyeliner? Yeah, I agree.’

‘There was this other time,’ Viktor says. The words come slowly, and his accent’s thick enough for Yuuri to know that he must be sleepy. ‘We were talking about dreams.’

‘Oh, we must’ve been quite young.’

‘No, no, not nightmares, not night-dreams. _Dreams_. I said you wanted a gold medal and I wanted to marry you someday, and you said, “Well, we can’t always have what we want.”’

Yuuri sits up straight and stares at Viktor. Viktor never fails to surprise Yuuri with the tiny offshootsof their shared lives which he chooses to remember, as opposed to the mass of things he’s forgotten over the years.

‘How old was I?’

Viktor frowns. ‘Thirteen?’

Yuuri laughs before clapping a hand over his mouth. ‘I don’t even remember.’

‘Mmm,’ says Viktor, scrunching up his aloe-vera-smeared nose. Yuuri touches his cheek, leaving a curl of clean skin exposed underneath the layers of soothing gel. ‘It was a long time ago.’

‘I’m twenty-two, Vitenka. I wouldn’t say that now. Things have changed.’

‘I’ve changed.’

‘Yeah,’ Yuuri murmurs, ‘yes, you have.’ 

‘Which?’

‘Hmm?’ Yuuri smoothes a last blob of aloe vera gel onto Viktor’s forehead, screws down the lid of the tube, and tucks a wayward strand of hair behind Viktor’s ear. He sits back on Viktor’s knees to admire his own work.

‘Which do you mean?’ repeats Viktor patiently and with exactly zero words of further clarification.

‘The one I’d answer differently? Both of those things you said, I guess.’

Even with Yuuri seated on Viktor’s lap they are still at eye-level with each other. Yuuri reaches out and combs the sweat-damp hair away from Viktor’s wonderful forehead. ‘Don’t kiss me,’ he says. ‘You’ll get gel all over my face.’

* * *

The problem with measuring the passage of time in terms of relationships, in terms of change and the innumerable shifts inside his own head, is that Yuuri _can’t_. Things don’t ever get better, not permanently. Not drastically. Yuuri is always going to be Yuuri, which is to say, a mess. He can weather all kinds of minor disasters and warily edge his way from one crisis to the next. He knows who and what he is, and he’s developed ways of coping with it. At twenty-two, Yuuri is quite sure that’s the best he can hope for.

Life as a figure skater does funny things to your perception of time. In St. Petersburg, Yuuri is constantly and sharply aware of the years slipping away from him. Then he walks back into Yu-topia and remembers all of a sudden that he’s the younger sibling, he’s classified as a youth by practically every legal definition in the world, he hasn’t become a parent like Yuuko or kept a business running like Mari, and he’s barely completed a semblance of a formal education. Twelve and fifteen and eighteen and twenty and he and Viktor are still figuring out how to be kind to themselves and each other. Yuuri feels certain that in this area, at least, his time isn’t going to run out.

So Yuuri throws himself into training with the ferocity of someone who has nothing left to prove. He cuts his weight down, puts his body through hard runs and drills which aren’t so much a punishment as a cleanse. When he feels less detached from his body, he leaves his wardrobe door open so that he can let himself look at his reflection again. Yuuri wants something to _do_. He’s bored of being depressed. Alone in his bedroom some evenings, he puts music on, low enough that he won’t bother the inn’s customers outside; he stands in front of the mirror, curves his arms over his belly. On the unpolished floorboards his feet shift, tense, point.

Another reason for Yuuri working to return to his competition weight is that he just likes taking up less space in general. He doesn’t tell Yuuko this, however, as he knows it will puzzle and upset her. Takeshi likes to tease Yuuri about his belly — Takeshi’s been about one and a half times Yuuri’s size since they were children, and there’s no harm behind the words — and Yuuri’s not about to stop him. Besides, passers-by sometimes stop to give Yuuri a second glance almost anywhere he goes; it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with his weight (Viktor’s cryptic ‘It’s the way you look’ wasn’t exactly reassuring). Maybe Yuuri is doomed to attract attention all the time, regardless of what shape he’s in. There’s nothing he can do to his ever-fluctuating, treacherous body to prevent that. Based on all this intricate and obsessive reasoning Yuuri sets out to make his mind _quiet_. He skates in the early hours when his bones miss the wind-chill of St. Petersburg, and he skates at night when the rink’s been locked up and everybody else has gone home. Then he skates better than he’s skated all season. This last fact doesn’t surprise Yuuri. He can deliver performances worthy of Japan’s ace skater when the eyes of Japan and the world aren’t on him.

‘You’re no prodigy,’ Yuuko points out while they sit back-to-back on the rink’s benches awaiting the dawn, ‘but you’ve been blessed with a lot of time to practise.’ She uncaps her bottle of Pocari Sweat and takes a swig before offering it to him. ‘At times like this, I guess… I guess sometimes I wish I’d pursued skating.’

Yuuri shakes his head at the bottle. He’s taller than Yuuko now, and he leans his weight on the heels of his hands, leans against her solid and familiar back. ‘You were good.’

‘Thanks.’ She doesn’t confess such secret thoughts to him unless the triplets are safely in bed.

‘Don’t say that in front of Viktor,’ Yuuri adds, hiding a smile at the thought. ‘He’ll get mad.’

‘Huh?’

‘The part about me not being a prodigy. He hates it for some reason.’

Yuuko turns around to peek at him, surprised and curious. ‘Viktor loves you very much.’

Yuuri doesn’t say anything in response to that. Yuuko looks down at her hands and presses the pads of her thumbs together with an odd, sad expression on her face, one childhood best friend seemingly dislodged by another. 

If Yuuri was doomed to be mediocre from the start, he thinks, Yakov wouldn’t have agreed to take him on in the first place. Yuuri doesn’t tell himself that very often, because the thought frightens him.

‘That’s how the press has always talked about us.’ Yuuri turns his head to catch the first tints of dawn sneaking through the windowpanes. ‘Viktor’s a genius, and I’m just the one who works really hard.’

Yuuko nods sympathetically. ‘It’s been difficult training in Russia, hasn’t it?’

A dozen gold medals, a thousand articles pretending to know _anything_ about his personal life and career, and he’ll still be hung up on that one time somebody called him a dime-a-dozen figure skater when he was fifteen. Yuuri walks a frail line between rationality and deliberate, desperate self-deception. His world ranking hasn’t slipped out of the top twenty since he was eighteen. There is no hope for Yuuri’s brain.

‘I don’t know.’ He rests his chin on his knees. ‘I can’t imagine my life being any different. What about you?’

‘No,’ Yuuko agrees eventually, ‘yeah, no, I can’t either.’

* * *

‘It must be so tiring,’ says Viktor that evening when he hears about Yuuri’s day, ‘to be you.’

Yuuri stops laughing long enough to reach up and hold his folded towel in place on the top of his head. Viktor, being slightly less fussy about cleanliness, has tossed his own towel onto a rock jutting out over the onsen’s side. ‘Really?’

‘This is sane-people logic. Reasonable logic.’ Viktor draws a straight line with his finger on the steamed-up tile. ‘And _this_ ,’ and he traces a thick, vicious tangle of squiggles next to the line he’s just drawn, ‘is your anxiety logic. Isn’t it exhausting?’

Yuuri leans his head against the side of the pool. From this distance he can study at his leisure the deep and beloved tear troughs beneath Viktor’s eyes, the fading acne scars along the jaw. He’s found plenty of other people beautiful — men and women both — in the years he’s had to grow up alongside Viktor, but at the end of the day Yuuri only has eyes for one person. ‘I wonder what I’d do without those comments of yours to make me more self-aware.’

‘Ah.’ Viktor blinks slowly. ‘Was that mean of me? I’m sorry.’

‘It’s okay.’

‘It wasn’t supposed to be an insult.’ Viktor slides a little further down into the pool, his knobby knees breaking the surface of the water. Droplets of water nest on his collarbones where the steam has kissed his skin. ‘I should’ve chosen a better word, I didn’t mean… well, _I’m_ exhausting. Nearly half the people I’ve dated have told me it’s draining to be around me.’

‘You were seventeen,’ Yuuri tells him flatly. ‘Two of those people were your age and the third was a manipulative creep whom Yakov almost murdered when he found out.’

Viktor gets that mulish expression he always wears when he knows Yuuri’s trying to redirect the conversation to be about Viktor instead of Yuuri himself. At such times Viktor’s love is almost comical, very Yura-like. All the same, he mutters, ‘I exhaust myself.’

Yuuri sits up to get a better look at Viktor’s face. ‘You don’t exhaust me!’

‘Thank you,’ replies Viktor with the sort of wryness he can only have picked up from Yuuri. He finds Yuuri’s hand beneath the surface of the water and lifts it to his lips, squeezes it between his own hot palms. Viktor’s eyelashes flutter as he figures out what to say next. Yuuri stretches out beside Viktor, never more comfortable than when he’s under that fierce gaze.

‘Yuuri,’ Viktor says, still clasping Yuuri’s hand with breathtaking earnestness as he looks into Yuuri’s eyes, ‘you’re not a terrible skater.’

This time Yuuri laughs so hard that he drops his towel into the water. Viktor, once again at a loss, sinks down and rests his forehead on Yuuri’s shoulder.

* * *

Yuuri’s practising his quad-toe-triple-toe combination with his earphones plugged in when Viktor walks into Hasetsu Ice Castle. He’s missing the scarf, perhaps, and the waist-length hair; otherwise, every line and dip of Viktor’s silhouette is achingly familiar. Yuuri slows to a halt long enough to take in Viktor’s calm air, his level gaze as he registers the sight of Yuuri skating to no audible music but the hammering of his own pulse.

‘I thought I might come.’ Viktor looks around the homely interior — grey, cosy, less imposing than their St. Petersburg rink — and a look of faint vulnerability eases its way onto his face. ‘And watch you.’

Yuuri doesn’t say anything about the fact that Viktor is carrying his own skating bag, slung over his shoulder, or how his feet must be itching to return to the ice. Gone along with Yuuri’s unscalable childhood shyness is Viktor’s long ponytail, the pastel-coloured hair ties worn as bracelets on his wrists, his habit of snapping them against the skin when he was upset. They’ve both changed with the passing of the years.

‘I’m learning one of your old programs.’ Yuuri slides over to the rink barrier to meet Viktor. ‘You don’t mind?’

‘Why would I mind?’ Viktor says. ‘They’re not mine. Not exclusively.’

He sits down on the edge of the bench to unlace his sneakers, looking less weary than the last time Yuuri saw him do this. Yuuri has to blink rapidly to dislodge the overlaying pictures that confuse his gaze — the nervous heartbeat of his eleven-year-old self, the memory of Viktor dusting ice shavings off his skates with the kind of fragile, round-cheeked confidence only a child can muster. When they first met as children, Viktor had seemed much older. Now Yuuri can look back down the years and see through all the grace and varnished manners which had felt so alien to him then.

Viktor can’t resist wanting to know more. He glances up at Yuuri through the hair falling into his eyes. ‘Which season?’

‘Season before last. “Stay Close to Me.”’

‘Mmm,’ says Viktor, who once spent his spare time learning Yuuri’s notorious Lohengrin step sequence before he appeared to lose his love for skating entirely. ‘I don’t like that anymore. You can have it off me. We’ll make you a gala program out of it.’

Yuuri stares at him. Viktor set new records with that free skate, won over several particularly difficult sponsors, broke a stiletto heel in the middle of Yuuri’s panic attack, and spent the rest of the banquet cuddling with Yuuri in their hotel room. Commentators have been speculating for months that Viktor plans to take that program to the Olympics.

‘What was wrong with it?’

‘You were already close to me back then. There was no feeling.’ Viktor straightens up, and stands. When he takes his first step towards Yuuri on his skate guards, he moves with the leisurely balance of someone who has grown up on the ice, a relaxed and powerful creature. ‘And I never managed to skate it clean at Worlds — I should do it again, with better jumps. I like your piercings.’

‘Really?’ Yuuri touches his ears, newly self-conscious. ‘I didn’t think you’d notice.’

‘I noticed,’ Viktor says.

Now that Viktor is within reach Yuuri leans across the barrier to touch him, catching Viktor’s hands in his own. He kisses Viktor’s fingers just as Viktor does for Yuuri. They tremble faintly underneath Yuuri’s lips.

‘Vitya, it’s never just been about competing with you. You’re so much more to me than…’ Yuuri shakes his head, words failing him yet again. Once he gets the aria playing over the rink’s speakers, he’ll be able to express himself better. ‘I want to skate on the same ice as you.’

Viktor nods as the dawn of his realisation begins to show on his face. ‘Did you know I was coming?’

‘No, I’m not quite ready to show you yet. But you can see it anyway. It’ll be an early surprise — well.’ Yuuri pauses. ‘Earlier than I was planning to show you.’

‘A surprise, Yuuri?’

‘Mm-hmm.’ Yuuri leans over the barrier again and puts his fingertip on Viktor’s nose, butterfly-light. Viktor blushes beautifully, and Yuuri rests his forehead against Viktor’s. ‘Don’t take your eyes off me.’

* * *

Afterwards, Viktor tackles Yuuri to the ice and kisses him hard, feeling Yuuri’s mouth lush and tender underneath his own. He finds himself cupping Yuuri’s head in one hand to keep it from smacking against the ice. Viktor’s reflexes, it seems, are far gentler than his conscious self.

He sits up, looking down at Yuuri. His head burns with noise.

‘I have to go,’ says Viktor. His heart’s on fire and he feels overwhelmed. Yuuri gazes up at him through those dark damp lashes, dazed yet unperturbed, fingers still hooked in the front of Viktor’s shirt. ‘I… I’ll be right back, I promise.’ He doesn’t want to leave Yuuri alone — he doesn’t want to be misinterpreted — so he kisses Yuuri once more, breathless, and says, ‘Thank you,’ before he flees the rink and makes it across town to Minako’s studio in record time.

‘Viktor Nikiforov!’ says Minako. ‘Sit down! Have a drink of water.’

Viktor is very bad with his own emotions. To be fair, Viktor’s many things at the same time, but he knows himself quite well: that’s one of his strong points. Yuuri tends to be better with feelings, albeit only when those feelings are his own. Otherwise — well, they have a mutual agreement to try to be less terrible at dealing with people crying.

Like a child in a folktale he tells Minako, glancing up at her towering, unreadable figure, ‘Yuuri is so beautiful and I love him so much.’

‘Is that supposed to be news?’ Minako sits down on the bench opposite him. ‘Okay, tell me about it. Why? And when did it start?’

Viktor does not know how to express himself using English words. For the first time in many months Yuuri has made Viktor want to skate again.

‘I was twelve. I saw him skating for the first time, it was… I can’t describe it.’ He rubs his knuckles into his eyes and starts again. ‘I could have posters of him on my walls if I wanted them. As if I could ever forget his face!’

‘Yes,’ says Minako patiently.

‘No, you don’t understand. When he comes out on the ice, I can’t look away from him — and he has such grace and his voice is so pretty, and his mouth is so sweet… He makes my chest hurt.’ Viktor looks up at her, helpless. ‘I don’t know what else to say.’

‘You don’t have to say anything more.’

* * *

Yuuri finds Viktor on the bridge overlooking the ocean. The old fisherman’s gone home, and in his absence, the evening sky yawns wide and warm behind them. Outlined against the sunset, his tall frame bent over the railing as he watches the fishing boats drift past, Viktor looks very ordinary.

Yuuri feels ordinary. He stops to roll up the cuffs of his trousers, letting Makkachin run ahead and lick Viktor’s hands before she plops herself down on the bridge to thump her tail rhythmically. Viktor turns to Yuuri, his eyes cautious, wondering, and Yuuri steps forward to meet him and then their mouths meet. Yuuri opens to him, toes curling, straining for more — he wants to be closer to Viktor.

Viktor’s hand finds its way to the nape of Yuuri’s neck, and then cradles Yuuri’s head. He clearly wants to scoop Yuuri into his arms but isn’t sure whether Yuuri will let him, so Yuuri picks Viktor up by the waist. Viktor makes a thrilled little sound and rests his head on Yuuri’s shoulder. The shape of his mouth is familiar, sweet. He bumps his nose against Yuuri’s.

Yuuri sets Viktor down gently. Makkachin puts her paws up on Yuuri’s thighs from behind, and he turns to caress her one-handed, keeping the fingers of his other hand intertwined with Viktor’s. Up close Viktor’s cheeks are very pink, a streetlights prince in fraying old clothes; his hair’s rumpled in the back where Yuuri has put his fingers through it, and he watches Yuuri with the mild, appreciative look of somebody spellbound, waiting to see what magical thing Yuuri will do next.

‘Do you know,’ Yuuri says without thinking, ‘you were my first time?’

‘ _Really?_ ’ Viktor’s eyes open wide. ‘Yuuri, you’re a natural!’

Yuuri snorts. ‘There’ll be plenty more times.’ He leans against the railing. Behind Viktor’s head, the clouds are a soft violet; he is so pretty that Yuuri can’t look away from him. ‘I wish this was our first kiss.’

‘I heard,’ Viktor says, ‘that your first kiss can be whenever you decide you want it to be.’ 

‘Who’d you hear that from?’

‘No one,’ says Viktor blithely. ‘I’ve just made it up.’

* * *

That night, Viktor calls Yakov. Yuuri takes over the thread of the conversation after a short while, and leaves Viktor to doze on the futon beside him, Makkachin’s fur rising and falling between them with the steady rhythm of a promise.

‘I’m definitely coming back. I don’t know about Vitenka.’ Yuuri hesitates. ‘He might need the rest of the season off.’

‘Very well,’ Yakov answers, although neither Yuuri nor Viktor was asking for his permission. He scratches his stubbly cheek. In the distant light of the phone screen, Yuuri can just barely make out Yakov’s dark circles. ‘You two look after each other.’

Yuuri breathes out a sigh of relief. ‘I will, Yakov!’

‘It wasn’t a request. My English—’ Yakov wrinkles his forehead, visibly irritated at himself. ‘I meant it as a statement of fact. You look after each other.’


	10. 26, 27

‘I don’t understand why you want me to wear them _all_ at the same time,’ says Yuuri, sounding mildly perplexed, as he poses against the floor-to-ceiling windows of their new St. Petersburg apartment. ‘It’s not like I can’t remember how many competitions I’ve won.’

Viktor’s mouth lifts up at one corner into a distinct smirk. He angles his phone a little better so that he can get more of Yuuri’s gold medals into the frame. ‘Indulge me.’

* * *

They kiss on the podium at the Olympics. Viktor’s hands are cold (he likes going gloveless now to show off his ring), so Yuuri rubs them between his own and puts his lips against Viktor’s knuckles.Yura’s sigh in the background is just audible over the clamour of people cheering in the stands. You don’t need to know which of them took the gold medal; it doesn’t matter.

* * *

 

THE END

 

 _When I think of how you move —_  
_when you enter a room, how the room_  
 _enters you; when you step out_  
 _into the night, how the night sky_  
 _falls into your hair —_  
 _when I think of how you stand_  
 _as if with nothing in your hands_  
 _and I have nothing to offer you now_  
 _save my own wild emptiness —_  
 _when I think of how you leave_  
 _the air untouched and how you came_  
 _into the world my grief had wrecked_  
 _and made it shine again by simply_  
 _walking slowly through the dark_  
 _toward me — love, I think_  
 _the body is a miracle, that animal_  
 _whose graceful shadow_  
 _lies between us, calmed._

— Cecilia Woloch, ‘Grace’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see you next level


End file.
